


Zombageddon

by newdog14



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Blood, F/F, F/M, Gore, It occurs to me I should probably tag, M/M, Minor Character Death, Violence, all those fun zombie things, also the gore descriptions aren't like mega detailed, because who doesn't feel angsty during the apocalypse?, but also humor, depending on how good our characters are at not getting bit, possible major character death, rating for violence, zomedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 07:11:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 86,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8436295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newdog14/pseuds/newdog14
Summary: Generally speaking, going on a road trip with your friends is a good thing. Just you and a few of your favorite people, plus miles and miles of open road and maybe a few terrible playlists to pass the time.
But this road trip has something extra. Specifically, a zombie apocalypse. Kind of a fun killer. Or, well, an everything killer.
Especially if they fail. Because they're trying to do more than just survive, more than just save their families. They're trying to save the world. 
There is a bright side though. Final exams don't seem half as stressful as they seemed three weeks ago.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So essentially this fic is my take on the classic Zombie Apocalypse storyline. I'm taking inspiration from ever piece of zombie media I've ever watched, and I'd list them but it's a very long list and would probably lead to spoilers. But hey, if you catch my references let me know, I'd love to see who else loves obscure zombie media as much as I do! Anyway I hope you guys enjoy this and thanks for reading!
> 
> P.S. I wanna send a big shout out to my beta, flintistrash, for always being on my ass about writing so that this actually happens! If you guys enjoy this story you should thank him, because he's the only thing keeping me on schedule.

#### NORTHWEST COMPANY SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FACILITY, OREGON

#### 21 DAYS BEFORE THE END OF THE WORLD

Stanley Pines was not a man who took handouts often. Accepting that kind of help meant depending on someone else, it meant trusting them, and as someone who’d spent nearly all his life swindling and lying and cheating to make a living, trusting others had never come easily to him. However if there was one person in the world he knew that he could always rely on, it was his twin brother Stanford. So when Ford offered him a position as a security guard at his lab after Stan’s latest get-rich-quick scheme backfired, Stan decided to accept it.

It felt strange, to be making an honest living for once. Though given the incredibly secretive nature of the various projects at the facility, maybe honest wasn’t quite the right word for the job. Stan had absolutely no idea what he was helping guard when he came into work each day, though Ford assured him that every project in the lab was well sanctioned and perfectly moral, and he himself was on the verge of a discovery that would change the course of humanity forever.

Ford seemed to be under the impression that this would be a good thing, but the idea made Stan nervous. Stan loved his brother, but Ford was a man who pursued knowledge for knowledge’s sake, and he was always so busy asking if he _could_ do something that he never considered whether or not he _should_.

However today was different from the ordinary lab procedure Stan had grown accustomed to. He could feel the change in atmosphere as soon as he entered the facility, it seemed as though every staff member in the building was on edge, and the tension was palpable. He’d only been gone for the weekend, but it seemed that something very important had changed over that time. Curiosity soon got the better of him, and he decided to track down his favorite lab tech and find out what was going on.

“Morning, Carla,” he said, smiling as she turned to him. She tried to return the smile, but it seemed a little forced.

“Good morning Stan,” she said, quickly turning back to her paperwork.

“So what happened that’s got everyone so nervous? And please don’t tell me it’s classified, I hate it when you intellectuals say that, it’s such a cop out,” Stan said, smiling as Carla snorted at his attempt at a joke. Then she sighed and looked down at her clipboard.

“It’s…I can’t give you too many details, I’m sorry, but…” Carla trailed off, then took a deep breath, as if steeling herself for what she was about to reveal, “Dr. Pines has been working on a serum that could make humanity immune to any disease or illness, from cancer to smallpox to Ebola, and everything in between. I know that it sounds a little farfetched, but I’ve been working on this with him for years and I assure you the science is perfectly sound, and possibly even something that would be brought about anyway with humanity’s natural evolution. He’s been making amazing progress so far, enough to catch the attention of several branches of government, one of which is now trying to rush the project.”

“I take it that’s not a good thing?” Stan asked, and Carla shook her head.

“It’s more than that, it’s unsafe and immoral what they want him to do,” she said, “Two special agents, Powers and Trigger, came here yesterday announcing that they wanted to move forward to human testing. We _all_ objected of course, but they’re refusing to listen to reason. This serum has come a long way, but it’s nowhere near far enough along to actually be tested on a _person_.”

Stan frowned, “Just who exactly do they think they’re going to test this thing on? Surely no one would volunteer for something so incomplete, right?”

Carla glared at the papers in her hands. “No, no one in their right mind would volunteer. That’s why the test subjects are prisoners from death row, there are five of them in total. They’re terrible men, one and all, but using them as guinea pigs when we have absolutely no idea what will happen to them is just cruel.”

“It sounds downright illegal to me,” Stan said, his frown deepening. “Ford can’t seriously be considering going through with this. I don’t care who these government yahoos think they are, they can’t force someone to break the law!”

Carla flinched at Stan’s tone, and he softened. “Sorry Carla, I didn’t mean to shout.”

“It’s alright Stan, I understand how frustrating this must be for you, we all feel the same way,” Carla said, “But unfortunately there isn’t really a choice. Dr. Pines can either perform the test as asked, or Powers and Trigger will seize his research and give it to someone who will.”

“When is this happening?” Stan asked, “I need to talk to Ford, _now_. I don’t care how important this breakthrough would be for him, he can’t go through with this. There are more than enough geniuses in this facility to think of a way out of this mess, I know there are!”

Carla flinched again, “You’d be right, but they didn’t have the time.”

Stan paused, and Carla refused to meet his eyes, “What do mean?”

She closed her eyes and shrunk into herself, as though she were afraid he might explode. “They’re performing the test right now. It’s too late to stop it. I came up here because I wanted no part in it.”

“No, it’s not too late,” Stan said, “Take me down there. Now.”

“Stan-”

“Now Carla!” he said, “We don’t have time to argue about this!”

“…okay.”

Carla led him to the elevator, and used her ID card to allow them access to Ford’s floor. There were seven levels to the laboratory, two above ground, and five below. Stan only had access to the two above, they contained offices and files for the Northwest Company, it was where they decided which projects to fund and who to hire and whatever other business they conducted. The bottom levels were where the scientists actually worked, and each level was only available to the scientists who had a project on that floor. Ford’s project was on level five, and Carla was one of the three lab techs that worked with him. Above Ford was a botanist named Melody Ramirez, who Stan had never talked to. The only reason he knew she was a botanist was because of her husband, Soos Ramirez, who was her only lab tech and seemed to not understand the meaning of the word ‘confidential’.

On level three there was a computer genius named Fiddleford McGucket, and he was nice enough, though Stan couldn’t even begin to understand what the man was working on. Level two was shared by a conservationist and a geneticist, Lolph and Dundgren, and from what Stan could understand they were attempting to clone endangered animals. Ford claimed they were only using relatively harmless animals, and nothing that could throw a habitat out of balance, but Stan thought it sounded a bit too much like Jurassic Park to be anything but a bad idea. Level one was occupied by Dr. Blendin Blandin, and all Stan knew about him was that he was incredibly secretive about his work and possibly insane.

The elevator ride down to level five was filled with awkward silence, and Stan couldn’t help but feel guilty for shouting at Carla earlier. He wanted to apologize, but he wasn’t sure how to broach the topic. After all, none of this was her fault. He had just opened his mouth when the elevator came to a stop and the doors slid open.

“Here we are,” Carla said, her voice quiet. She led the way down the hall and through a door. They entered a viewing room for the main lab, the only other occupants being two men in black suits. There was a door on the opposite wall that led into the actual lab, but the dominating feature of the room was a glass window, and on the other side of it was Ford, his other two lab techs, and five men who were clad in orange jumpsuits, bound to chairs with handcuffs, and attached to more monitors than Stan had ever seen in his life.

The two men in suits, presumably Powers and Trigger, turned at their entrance. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Stan ignored them and made his way through the door and into the lab. “Ford stop this!”

“Stanley? How did-”

“Ford this is wrong. You can’t let these guys bully you into breaking the law!”

“Stanley, you don’t understand, I don’t have a choice here,” Ford said.

“These men could die!” Stan said, “Do you really want that on your conscious?”

“Pretty sure we’re dead anyway,” muttered one of the prisoners, but the twins paid him no mind.

“Stanley, I’m sorry,” Ford said, looking ashamed. “But it’s too late, we’ve already injected the serum.”

Stan stared his brother down, not sure what to say to that. It was too late. He was too late. The steady beeping of machines filled the room as he took in the situation. He heard Carla’s hesitant footsteps behind him, and he sighed in defeat as she spoke.

“Did it…did it work then?” she asked, glancing between Ford and the five men.

Ford looked unsure. “I don’t…I don’t know. Nothing’s changed yet, but it’s only been a few minutes. Honestly I’m not sure what we should really even be looking for at this point, and there are two different strains of the serum, so the reactions may vary. Subjects One, Two, and Three were given Strain A, and Subjects Four and Five received Strain B.”

That was when the beeping started to pick up. It started with the Subject One’s monitor, then those of Subjects Two and Three picked up as well.

“Dr. Pines, what’s going on?” Carla asked, rushing over to Subject One as he started violently convulsing. It looked like a seizure to Stan. The second and third men quickly began to exhibit the same symptoms, and the other two lab techs moved to hold them in place.

“I don’t know, just try to keep them from hurting themselves,” Ford said, moving to his computer and watching the data scroll across the screen, narrating the events into a recording device. Powers and Trigger ran into the room.

“Pines! What’s going on?” barked the older agent.

“Can’t you do something?” Stan asked, but Ford shook his head. The shaking was getting worse, and the two other prisoners were getting nervous, tugging at their binds in an attempt to break free. Stan moved to the one closest to him and started helping to free him.

“Stanley, what the hell are you doing? That man’s a dangerous criminal!” Ford said.

“He’s a human being Ford! I don’t care what he did to get here, he doesn’t deserve to be cuffed to a chair and experimented on!” Stan said, just as he managed to pick the lock on the first cuff, mentally congratulating himself for never giving up on carrying a bobby pin around.

Then the convulsions stopped, and the erratic beeping turned into a flat line. Carla paled as the man she’d been holding slumped, and for a moment everyone stopped and looked to Ford. He looked unsure for a moment, then he took a breath and hardened his expression. “Uncuff them. There’s no point in monitoring corpses.”

Stan was aghast to see his brother act so coldly, three men were dead after all. However the lab techs obeyed, albeit with shaking hands.

“Stanley, I want you to go back upstairs,” Ford said, turning to face his brother with ice in his gaze.

“No,” Stan said, gaze just as cold.

“Stan, this isn’t up for deba-”

He was cut off by screaming. They turned in sync to look at the lab techs, and the world seemed to slow down. The men were dead, the monitors still showing no heartbeat, but they were moving. Subject Two was biting into a lab tech’s throat, while Subject One had Carla on the ground. She was screaming as she tried to keep him from biting her.

Stan was frozen for a moment, then chaos erupted and everything was moving too fast for him to keep track of it all. The third lab tech rushed to Carla’s aid, and Subject Three lunged at the still bound Subject Four next to him. The prisoner Stan had been in the process of freeing snatched Stan’s bobby pin so he could undo the remaining handcuff and then bolted for the door, just as Powers and Trigger pulled out their guns and took aim at the other subjects.

Stan unfroze himself as Carla was rescued, pulling her away from the prisoners. The lab tech who’d had his throat ripped out was dropped to the floor, and Subject Four screamed as he was ripped open.  Powers and Trigger fired at Subject One, who was now attacking the lab tech who’d rescued Carla, but their bullets had no effect. Stan pulled Carla behind him as he grabbed Ford and led them out of the lab. They heard more gunshots as they fled, followed by shouting and growling. Stan pulled them into the hallway just in time to see the elevator door closing with Subject Five inside.

“Wait!” he shouted, but the man just mouthed sorry as the door slid shut. They raced to the elevator and Stan mashed the call button, but it made no difference, “There has to be another way up!”

He turned towards Ford, but his brother was frozen in shock, “Ford! Come on, we need to get out of here!”

“There’s a staircase at the other end of the hall,” Carla said, pulling both men back the way they’d come. “But we have to hurry, they won’t stay in the lab forever.”

Stan nodded and helped her pull Ford along. Carla pulled open the door and an alarm went off. “Shit.”

“What the hell is that?” Stan hissed, and they could hear growling from the laboratory.

“This door is a sort of fire escape, it’s only supposed to be opened in case of emergency. The alarm is telling people to evacuate,” Carla said. Then Subject Two burst into the hallway, he was feral and bloody and had no less than six bullet wounds scattered around his torso. He snarled at them as they made their way into the stairwell, then came after them. They slammed the door shut, but the alarm was still blaring. The only good thing was that the light had returned to Ford’s eyes, his shock pushed away, at least for the time being.

“We need to get topside, _now_ ,” Ford said, leading the way up the stairs. Then there was a bang from below. They looked down to see the door shuddering as it was slammed into again and again, and they could hear growling coming from the other side.

“How long will that hold?” Stan asked.

“It won’t,” was Ford’s response.

 

#### CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF THE ARTS

#### 15 DAYS BEFORE THE END OF THE WORLD

Mabel grinned as her computer lit up with the incoming Skype call, it was six o’clock on the dot, just like every week when her brother called.

She was smiling when she opened the window, but her smile faltered when she saw his expression, “What’s with the long face Dip Dot?”

“I finally watched that police brutality video that’s been all over Twitter. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t expect it to be _that_ bad, you know?” he said.

“Oh, I think I remember Paz talking about that, but I’ve been so busy with my final project that I’ve barely been on the internet in days. Animation is hellish, I can’t believe people do this for a living,” she said, “What exactly happened?”

“Official story is that the Portland authorities got a call about some sick homeless guy loitering outside a coffee shop, so they sent out an ambulance and a patrol car. Homeless guy attacks the EMT, the cop draws his gun, and then homeless guy gets shot six times and some hipster posted the video on YouTube,” Dipper said, “The internet is arguing-”

“As they always do,” Mabel chimed in, and Dipper rolled his eyes before continuing.

“The internet is arguing about what it means that shooting the guy was such a kneejerk reaction for a beat cop,” Dipper said, “Some people think he should have tried to handle the situation peacefully first, others say that the homeless guy was literally trying to eat an EMT, and that cop is a hero who saved her life.”

“Wait, eat? You’ve _got_ to be kidding me,” Mabel said, frowning as she tried very hard not to imagine what that would look like.

“I wish. The police haven’t given any official word, but everyone’s pretty sure there were drugs involved,” Dipper said.

“Is the EMT okay?” Mabel asked.

“Probably?” Dipper shrugged, “There hasn’t been any word on her either, but it looked like the guy only got her arm, and she was transferred to a hospital right away, so I can’t imagine how she _wouldn’t_ be okay.”

“Well that’s good I guess,” Mabel said, “I hope she makes a full recovery.”

“Me too,” Dipper said, “But hey, you mentioned a final project? How’s that going?”

Mabel groaned, “Animation is harder than I thought it would be. There are just so many frames! I’ve done like two hundred drawings and I’ve got, like, three minutes of film to show for it.”

“Can’t you just switch to something else?” Dipper asked.

“I wish, but I don’t have the time,” she said, “I’ve got to get this done and turned in in less than a month. But that’s why I’ve cut myself off from the entire world and all its distractions.”

“Oh yeah? Does that mean I should stop calling every week?” Dipper asked, looking just the slightest bit nervous. Mabel knew exactly why, being apart from her twin sucked for her, but she knew it was worse for Dipper. Their Skype calls were pretty much the only thing that made the distance bearable.

“Heck no, twins can’t cut off other twins. That’s like, an ultimate rule of the universe,” Mabel said, and Dipper snorted at her, “Besides, _someone’s_ gotta keep me up to date on all the latest happenings in the world. Every time I try to ask Candy and Grenda they just mock me for living under a rock.”

“That’s an odd thing to mock your roommate for,” Dipper said, not bothering to hide his amusement.

“They’re absolutely terrible,” Mabel said, her smile betraying her own amusement, “If it wasn’t for the fact that I need them to walk Waddles for me I’d abandon them both and move in with Pacifica.”

“Wait, so you’re neglecting Waddles just so you can get some schoolwork done? That’s low Mabel,” Dipper said, grinning at her outraged sputtering.

“I’m not neglecting him!” she said, “And finals are important, this video is worth 50% of my grade bro-bro!”

Dipper laughed, “More important than the world’s greatest pig? I gotta say, that’s hard to believe.”

Mabel groaned and banged her head against her desk. “You’re the worst twin ever. What happened to the adorable little brother who supported all of my decisions, no matter how questionable?”

Dipper snorted, “He had to deal with the aftermath of Junior Prom.”

Mabel flinched at the memory. It certainly wasn’t one of her proudest moments. “Okay, I can’t argue that that wasn’t bad, but you’ve done way worse stuff and _I_ still support _you_!”

“Okay no, because _I_ have never done anything that resulted in an _FBI_ _investigation,_ _Mabel_ ,” Dipper said, “And since that’s pretty much the worst thing you _can_ do, I’d say I’m in the clear.”

“I dunno Dipper, I think actually being arrested beats a measly investigation,” she said, giving him a smug grin as he flinched.

“I spent one night in a county jail, I wasn’t arrested,” Dipper muttered. But she knew she had him beat.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Jailbird,” she said.

“Don’t you have a final project you need to be sobbing over?” Dipper asked, grinning triumphantly at her groan.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Mabel said, “Same time next week?”

“You can count on it,” Dipper said, smiling at her, “Love ya sis.”

“Love you too bro-bro!”

 

#### PORTLAND, OREGON

#### 9 DAYS BEFORE THE END OF THE WORLD

“The city of Portland, Oregon has officially been placed under quarantine,” declared the KGW reporter, Shandra Jimenez. “The Center for Disease Control has not yet announced what exact virus is plaguing the city, but they are fast at work trying to contain its spread.”

“How about you tell us something we don’t know,” Robbie muttered. Wendy shushed him before turning her attention back to the television.

“The CDC is working with the National Guard to gather up groups of citizens who have yet to be infected, once cleared by CDC officials those citizens will be relocated until further notice,” continued the reporter, “As you can see behind me the process is slow but sure, and so far 52 civilians have been cleared to leave the city. For those of you within the quarantine, remain indoors until instructed otherwise. Remain calm, and rest assured that help is on the way.”

The camera switched back to the lead anchors, and the whole room groaned.

“Well that was completely useless,” Nate said, glaring at the TV as another reporter went over the five day forecast.

“I wouldn’t say completely useless,” Thompson said, “At least we know they’re trying to get us out now.”

“Personally I’m a little more curious about what the hell happened that required a quarantine in the first place,” Lee said, throwing one of his chips at Thompson’s head.

“They’re doing their best Lee, it’s not their fault they don’t know what kind of virus they’re dealing with yet,” Thompson said.

Wendy frowned, “But they have to know.”

Tambry glanced up from her phone long enough to roll her eyes. “If they knew what it was, I’m pretty sure they’d have told us.”

“But they’re letting people out,” Wendy insisted, “How could they know who’s infected and who’s not if they don’t know what the virus is?”

“Maybe they’re just looking for healthy people?” Nate asked.

“Don’t be stupid,” Robbie said, “If they don’t know what the virus is they won’t know how long it takes for symptoms to show up. Someone could look perfectly healthy on the outside but still be infected, and you’d never know until it was too late.”

“They could be using the process of elimination,” Lee suggested, Robbie scoffed.

“You shouldn’t have to be a nursing major to know that that’s a shit idea,” Robbie said, “There are way too many diseases in the world to use _the_ _process of elimination_ to end a quarantine.”

“Okay Mister Medical School, how do _you_ think they’re clearing people then?” Nate asked.

Robbie fell silent, his ever present frown deepening as he considered the possibilities. For a few minutes the only noise was the voice of the cheery weatherman who was calling for perfect beach conditions this weekend. Finally Robbie broke the silence, “They have to know what the virus is. There’s no way they’d let people out of the quarantine if they didn’t know what they were dealing with.”

“Then why aren’t they telling us?” Wendy asked, “People are starting to panic. Isn’t that something the government likes to avoid at all costs?”

“Not if whatever this thing is is worse than not knowing at all,” Tambry said.

“What could possibly be so bad that they’d rather keep us in the dark then admit its existence?” Lee asked, “They told us about that Ebola outbreak, and that’s supposed to be the worst thing out there, right?”

“Yeah but that was like, five people,” Tambry said, “This is a whole city.”

“Whatever it is, it’d have to fatal and incurable, right?” Nate turned to Robbie for confirmation. Wendy tried not to laugh, Robbie may have known more about medical stuff than the rest of them, but he wasn’t an encyclopedia.

“Well duh,” Robbie said, “But there are loads of fatal viruses and diseases that don’t have cures. So it still doesn’t make sense for the authorities to know but keep it a secret.”

Wendy frowned. They were stuck in a quarantined city, and the only thing they could say for certain about the disease that put them there was that it was likely the worst thing humanity had ever come across. The situation definitely made her wish she’d brought her old hatchet, but unfortunately it was sitting in her closet, safe in her apartment across the street. Tambry had once teased her for her attachment to the old thing, but it’d always reminded her of her family so she’d held onto it anyway. Besides, Tambry had absolutely no right to judge _anyone_ about being attached to _anything_ , because she hadn’t put her cell phone down for more than thirty seconds since she was thirteen.

Wendy sighed and turned off the TV, “What do you guys wanna do then? Stay here and wait? Head to someone else’s apartment?”

“The reporter clearly stated that we should stay indoors,” Thompson said. Nate and Lee exchanged conspiratorial looks.

“Well that settles it,” Lee said, “We should go exploring!”

“Wait, what? No!” Thompson said, “It’s not safe to go outside!”

“Well _I_ think it’s a great idea,” Nate said, moving towards the window that opened up to the fire escape, “I mean, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to run around an empty city, right? We may never have this chance again,” Nate slid the window open and Lee joined him in crawling out of it.

“Hello Portland!” Lee shouted, “Are you ready for a quarantine?”

Wendy rolled her eyes, “Lee, stop being stupid.”

“Oh come on Wen-” Nate was cut off by the most horrific sound any of them had ever heard. It was a cross between a scream and a growl and it made Wendy’s blood run cold. Nate and Lee were tripping over themselves to get back inside and slam the window shut.

“Oh second thought, maybe we should all stay in here,” Lee said.

 

#### WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY

#### 2 DAYS BEFORE THE END OF THE WORLD

Dipper couldn’t help but jump a bit when the emergency broadcast system had started up. It’d been forever since he’d heard it, and he certainly hadn’t expected it to interrupt his breakfast with the announcement that all of Seattle was being sent to shelters for an undetermined amount of time and undisclosed reasons.

So it was with the vaguest description of an emergency ever that Dipper found himself on a bus going to the Tacoma Dome with nothing more than what he could shove in a duffle bag and his favorite hat. But he could care less about his stuff, what was really making him anxious was his cell service. Or more specifically, his lack thereof.

He was in a major city, and he’d never had an issue with coverage before, but he hadn’t had a single bar since he woke up that morning. The Wifi at the university was out too, which only added to his nerves. All he wanted to do was to call Mabel, so naturally that was the one thing he couldn’t do.

The bus arrived at the stadium, and Dipper was herded towards it with hundreds of other civilians. He clutched his bag tightly as he made his way through a military blockade, it looked like something out of a war zone. Was the country being invaded?

He passed through a gate lined in barbed wire and guarded by men with guns. He followed the crowd as they made their way through the camp that surrounded the dome. There were soldiers everywhere, running and shouting and all heavily armed. The crowd of civilians thinned as it was divided up into groups. His own group was led into the dome. The bleachers had been pulled out of the dome, and it was now filled with thousands of cots, one of which was assigned to each civilian.

Dipper took a seat on his own cot, watching as officials gave directions and attempted to keep the crowds calm. Dipper pulled out his phone again, but he didn’t have any service here either.

A soldier was making his way down the row of cots, handing out bedrolls, and Dipper desperately tried to get his attention. “Excuse me, sir! Do you know what’s going on? Or why we don’t have any phone service?”

“Everything is fine, just remain calm and follow orders,” the soldier said, handing Dipper a bedroll. “The state of Washington has declared a State of Emergency and been placed under Martial Law, but I promise you’ll be safe here. Just sit tight for now, this’ll all blow over soon.”

“What about my phone?” Dipper asked, “I need to call my sister.”

The soldier shrugged. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that, sorry kid.”

He moved on before Dipper could ask any further questions, such as why this was happening, or what kind of danger warranted turning the Tacoma Dome into a refugee camp. Dipper sighed as he sank back down on his cot. He laid back and stared at the ceiling, trying to tune out the noise of hundreds of panicked people. Every now and again someone would start shouting about their right to information, or how they couldn’t be held here against their will. After three outbursts like that in as many hours, the military finally made a proper announcement.

“Citizens of Seattle, may I have your attention please,” the voice was booming from the stadium’s loudspeakers, and everyone quieted down to listen, “We know this has been a stressful day for everyone, and on behalf of the US Government I’d like to thank you all for your patience and understanding. Now as I’m sure you’re all aware, there have been some very disturbing news reports coming from Oregon in the last few days. It is because of these reports that a state of emergency has been declared not only there, but in Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Montana, and California.”

Dipper’s blood ran cold. Mabel was in California. Southern California, sure, but if the government was worried that whatever happened to Oregon was going to happen to Montana, then Southern California wouldn’t be safe either.

“While these are certainly dangerous times, I promise you’ll be safe so long as you’re here under the protection of the National Guard. All we ask is that you remain calm. This will all be over soon, and then you can go back to your everyday lives,” said the voice. Someone snorted, and Dipper turned to the man next to him.

“Something funny?” he asked, studying his neighbor with careful skepticism. The man was blond and handsome, but there was something about the way he carried himself that screamed dangerous. Dipper couldn’t decide why, but he immediately disliked the man.

“Not really,” he answered, a vicious smirk on his face. “It’s just that the idea of this blowing over anytime soon is kind of ridiculous, don’t you think?”

Dipper frowned at him. “No, I don’t think.”

“Well I figured out that much kid,” he said, giving Dipper an exaggerated eye roll.

Dipper’s frown became a glare. “I’m twenty years old, I’m not a kid.”

“And I’m twenty-six, but you don’t see _me_ trying to use my age to prove my maturity,” he said.

“Whatever,” Dipper said, pulling his hat low over his eyes and lying down on his cot. He was infinitely too exhausted to deal with this shit.

“Don’t tell me you’re actually gonna try to sleep in place like this,” Dipper couldn’t tell if the man was concerned or disgusted. “Seriously, kid, that’s not a good idea. Everything could go to hell in a handbasket at any minute, don’t you wanna be awake when it does?”

Dipper sighed. Responding would only encourage the guy, but… “What makes you think that everything’s gonna go to hell in a handbasket?”

“Haven’t you been paying attention to Portland?” the man asked incredulously. Dipper sat up and looked the blond man in the eye.

“Not really, but it’s just like, some new strain of the flu or something, right?” Dipper asked. He’d read a few articles on it, his great uncles lived in Oregon so he was keeping an eye on it for their sakes, but he hadn’t done any in depth internet searching. Maybe he should have.

“Yeah no, it’s significantly worse than the flu, Pine Tree,” Dipper frowned at him.

“My name is Dipper,” he said, and the man smiled at him.

“Pleasure to meet you Dipper, I’m Bill,” he said, “Now as I was saying, it’s worse than the flu. People are panicking and rioting all throughout Oregon, but nobody really knows what the hell is happening because any time someone posts a video or a picture from down there it gets deleted before anyone can see it.”

“Then how do _you_ know about it?” Dipper asked.

“Because _I_ know the internet better than anyone else in the world, and once something is posted you can never actually get rid of it, only make it harder to get to,” Bill said it slowly, as if explaining a very simple concept to a child. “The government’s getting smarter with their cover ups though, they’ve shut down every cell tower in the state this time. It would have worked perfectly if they’d shut off the internet too, but I guess that was too difficult to do on such short notice.”

Dipper opened his mouth to say how ridiculous that was, only to remember that he hadn’t had cell service all day. He frowned. Surely there was no way this nut case could be right, right? “What on earth could possibly be so bad as to make the government this desperate to cover it up?”

“Well isn’t that the million dollar question,” Bill said, his knowing smirk finally fading away, “I’ll give ‘em this much, their attempts at a cover up may be obvious as fuck, but they’ve still managed to keep everything secret.”

“Isn’t that kind of worse though?” Dipper asked, “Or at least, scarier? They’re so afraid of our reaction to what’s going on that they’re not even being subtle about keeping it from us anymore.”

Bill bit his lip, and for a moment he looked truly afraid. But it was gone as quickly as it came, and then he was grinning again. “Guess we’re totally screwed then, huh? Total doomsday scenario.”

“You know most people wouldn’t smile at the thought of the apocalypse,” Dipper said, frowning again. He got the feeling he was going to be doing a lot of that.

“Maybe, but think of it this way,” Bill said, a wicked grin on his face. “It’s the end of the world, as we know it. It’s the end of the world, as we know it. It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.”

The sudden singing certainly threw Dipper for a loop, but he couldn’t help but laugh when Bill continued to sing the first verse of the song. He didn’t know how long he was going to be stuck in this shelter, and he definitely wasn’t sold on Bill’s Armageddon theory, but maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. At the very least he wouldn’t be bored.

 

#### THE END OF THE WORLD

“What was originally believed to be an ordinary virus has now been revealed to be an outbreak without precedent. The first recorded case of the infection was in Portland, Oregon, twelve days ago. Since then the infection has spread to Washington State, Idaho, Minnesota, Nevada, California, and, after the tragic American Airlines plane crash last night, Washington D.C., Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia.

“It is believed that the infection spreads through bite, and there are no known cases of someone being bitten and not becoming one of the infected. President Smith has issued the following executive order for dealing with the infected: “They are no longer considered living humans, they should not be treated as such. Without a cure, or even a cause, we can no longer hold back. There will be no punishment for acting in self-defense against the infected, even when circumstances lead to the death of the infected.” She also asked us to remain strong, and to use that strength to defend our country and its people.

“Attempts to evacuate the states that are already infected have been abandoned in favor of preventing further spread of the virus. It has recently been confirmed that the most effective way, and perhaps only way, to stop the infected is by delivering a blow to the head powerful enough to destroy the brain. It is as of yet unclear just how much of the brain must be damaged in order to stop them, but crushing, stabbing, and shooting have all proved to be effective.

“Our city may have fallen, but KGW News is still dedicated to keeping you all informed on the spread of what has been dubbed ‘Zombageddon’. For now though, this is Shandra Jimenez, signing off.”

 

 

**Song for this chapter: End of The World (As We Know It) by R.E.M.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact: All zombie TV shows have websites that'll tell fans more about what is and what will be happening to the characters, and so does Zombageddon! Check out the blog at http://zombageddon.tumblr.com/ for updates, art, bonus content, and more!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on the time line: Chapter one went through events spanning the three weeks in between the initial outbreak and when the zombies truly got out of hand (marked by the broadcast at the end of the chapter). This chapter is going to jump between the end of the world and the outbreak, and then the next chapter will pick up with what's going after the broadcast. The rest of the story will be completely linear, I promise, but I felt like flashbacks would be the best way to tell this part of the story. Hopefully if my explanation confused you the actual story will clear things up! Enjoy!

#### NORTHWEST COMPANY SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FACILITY, OREGON

#### THE END OF THE WORLD

“For now though, this is Shandra Jimenez, signing off.”

The screen went black, and Ford felt like the ground had dropped out from underneath him. “Oh God. I’ve killed us all.”

“Ford, no, you can’t hold yourself responsible for this,” Carla said, “You had no way of knowing that this would happen.”

“That doesn’t make it any less my fault Carla,” Ford said, “So many people are dead. I’ve destroyed the entire fucking country.”

Ford had been replaying the events of the last few weeks in head, regretting every choice that had led him here, trying to figure out what he could have done differently. But everything had happened so quickly, and he had let his shock overcome him.

That was what had really screwed the world over. When he saw one of his lab techs get their throat ripped out he’d just shut down. It wasn’t that he’d been good friends with the man though. It was that Ford had worked with him for seven months and never bothered to learn the man’s name. Names had never been something Ford had thought of as mattering before. He’d worked with lots of people whose names he didn’t know, when they were only staying with the project for a year it seemed best not to get attached. But now he was dead, and Ford didn’t even know who he was.

 

#### NORTHWEST COMPANY SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FACILITY, OREGON

#### 21 DAYS AGO

Ford pulled Stan and Carla up the stairs, mentally cursing as he heard other doors opening as people started to evacuate. Whatever thing (he refused to think of it as human) was at the door still hadn’t seemed to realize that the door could be pulled open, but the door surely couldn’t hold up against that slamming for much longer.

They reached the landing of level four just as Dr. Ramirez and her husband were walking into the stairwell. “Run!” Ford shouted as he passed them, but he wasn’t risking a stop.

Dr. Ramirez looked confused at his declaration, but that was when the door below them broke open. A blood curdling scream rang through the stairwell, and all three of the prisoners started making their way up the staircase.

They were fast, but that wasn’t the worst part. No, the worst part was the two lab techs that came through the door next. Ford nearly froze all over again at the sight of them, they were mangled and bloody, but that didn’t seem to affect their speed.

“Dr. Pines, what is going on?” Dr. Ramirez’s voice pulled him back to reality, and he shook off his guilt again. He needed to get it together.

“We need to run, now!” he said, pulling Stan and Carla up the next flight of stairs. Dr. Ramirez was right behind them, but her husband was slower. Slow enough that one of the prisoners caught up to him. He screamed when the monster lunged at him, it was biting and snapping at the large man, and then Stan pulled free of Ford’s grip and raced back down the stairs. “Hang in there Soos!”

“Stanley! What are you doing?” Ford shouted back.

“I’m not leaving him!” Stan said, pulling the prisoner off of Soos and pushing it down the stairs, knocking over one of the other prisoners too. “No one else is dying today!”

Stan pulled the man back up the stairs, but there was no way they would make it up to the ground floor. Ford was starting to panic as they neared the landing for level three. There were at least a hundred people who worked on the upper levels, maybe more, plus the other scientists. And if the lab techs caught whatever had killed the prisoners, there was no telling who else might catch it too. Or how it was spreading. Was it airborne? Bloodborne? Ford had no idea, and all the equipment he could have used to figure it out was back down in his lab.

“Ford, are you alright?” Carla asked, “Just take a deep breath, okay? We’ll get out of this, and we’ll figure out what went wrong and fix it, okay?”

Ford hadn’t even realized that he’d stopped breathing until she’d pointed it out. But she was wrong, they’d never make it to the top. Not alive anyway. They reached level three, Stan and Soos not far behind, but the prisoners weren’t too far behind either.

“In here!” the door to level three swung open, and Ford had never in his life been so excited to see Fiddleford H. McGucket. He’d always thought the man was something of a kook, but today Ford saw him as a savior. He rushed through the door, Carla and Dr. Ramirez right behind him.

“Stanley! Hurry!” Ford shouted, standing next to McGucket, ready to slam the door shut as soon as Stan and Soos were inside. The two men reached the landing and bolted through the door, and Ford and McGucket moved to slam it shut. One of the monsters slammed into it, trying to force its way through, but Ford held firm.

“Move!” Stan said, and Ford turned to see a massive filing cabinet in his brother’s arms. Ford complied and Stan dropped the cabinet, quickly pushing it flush against the door.

“Get everything that’s not bolted down!” Ford ordered, “We need to make a barricade to keep those things out.”

The others complied, and soon the door was no longer visible behind the wall of cabinets, tables, and computer parts that now filled the hallway. The sound of a body slamming into the door stopped shortly after, and Ford let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. They were safe, at least for now.

“Dr. Pines?” Dr. Ramirez was sitting with her husband, inspecting him for injuries. She looked fearful and uncertain, and Ford wondered how apparent it was that he felt the same way.

“Yes?”

“What…” she trailed off, but soon found her courage and began again, “What were those things?”

“I don’t know,” Ford said.

 

#### NORTHWEST COMPANY SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FACILITY, OREGON

#### PRESENT DAY

“I got it!” McGucket said, grinning like a maniac as the others rushed to gather around him, “We now have access to the NSA satellite, meaning we’ll see everything: security and traffic cameras, radio channels, phone calls, what’s left of the internet, we’ve got it all.”

Carla’s eyes lit up with hope for the first time since that first day, Stan swore he’d never seen anything more beautiful. “We can contact other survivors!”

Stan locked eyes with his brother. “We could find the kids.”

Ford looked torn between daring to hope and despair that their niece and nephew hadn’t made it this far. Stan squeezed his shoulder and did his best to look certain. “We _will_ find the kids.”

Ford nodded, and Stan was relieved to see his eyes harden with determination. It had been awhile since Ford had had a goal to work towards, and his brother was never quite right without one.

“What about our escaped prisoner?” Carla asked, “Could we find him too?”

McGucket pulled up the prisoner’s file on one of his monitors. “I can set up a facial recognition program to look for him, but I’m not certain we’ll find anything. Before he was a traitor and a murderer he worked for the NSA, he knows how we can find him and how we can’t. So it really depends on whether or not he thinks we’ll be looking.”

“How much trouble would it be to go undetected by your satellite?” Carla asked.

McGucket looked thoughtful for a moment, and though he seemed as though he was entirely focused on the code he was typing out,, Stan knew him well enough by now to know that his mind was currently considering a hundred different possibilities at once.

“I’m not sure,” McGucket finally said, “It depends on what areas still have power, if he’s travelling alone or in a group, if he’s moving or if he found somewhere safe to stay…if he’s even still alive.”

Stan frowned, he didn’t like thinking about that possibility. There were already so many things that could go wrong with their current plan for a cure, including the fact that even if they found the guy they still had no idea how to get him back to the lab, or even to another lab. Stan looked back at the mugshot they had of the prisoner. It wasn’t very recent, the man in the photo was clean shaven, and his hair was cropped short, but Stan still recognized the man in the mugshot as the man who’d escaped. Those eyes were unforgettable.

“He’s still alive,” Stan turned at the broken voice, it was Melody. He hadn’t seen much of her lately, though to be fair he’d never seen her at all before this mess. Her eyes had dark bags under them and her hair was a mess. She should have looked weak, but her eyes were hardened and her words carried a venom in them that Stan had never heard from her before. She moved closer, glaring at the monitors as if they personally offended her. “He has to be.”

 

#### NORTHWEST COMPANY SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FACILITY, OREGON

#### 21 DAYS AGO

Stan paced the length of the room as the scientists around him argued. He’d understood them at first, when they were talking about ethics and humane treatment and the foolishness of trying to play God, but then they’d moved on to the science behind what had happened, enzymes and DNA structures and so many words that Stan knew he could never pronounce, not even in his head. So he tuned all their arguing out and tried to take stock of their current situation.

They were trapped three levels below ground, and there were only two ways off this floor. The emergency staircase that they’d barricaded, and the elevator. McGucket had been able to hack into the research facility’s security system and had gained access to every camera in the building. Ford and Melody had been moderately upset to learn that their research was being recorded without their knowledge, but Carla had convinced them that right now it was for the best. They could see every floor of the building, though that wasn’t exactly a good thing. Most of the workers from the first two floors had been attacked, and subsequently killed, but Stan knew that some of the workers had been able to escape. Unfortunately so had many of the creatures, and Ford had insisted that they trigger the facility safeguards that were in place for when there was a containment breach. If they hadn’t been trapped before they sure as hell were now. There was no way out of the building without outside help, specifically the help of the Northwest family. Company security was important to Mr. Northwest, and given the nature of the work that went on here Stan understood why, but that didn’t make it any less inconvenient that only members of the family had the clearance to end a quarantine.

Stan sighed and turned back to the monitors McGucket had set up. The top floor was abandoned, but when he looked at it Stan could almost pretend that nothing was wrong. It was simply empty, the same as when the facility had a fire drill. Then there was the ground floor, which looked like something straight out of a horror movie. There was blood everywhere, and corpses. Some were stripped to the bone and would never move again, others were shambling around aimlessly, waiting for something else to kill. They still weren’t sure how the disease was spreading, but everyone who died and still had enough of a body to move had come back as, for lack of a better word, zombies. It was Soos who’d first used the term, and as ridiculous as zombies seemed Stan couldn’t deny the accuracy. The worst part of that floor though was the sheets of metal that had closed over the doors and windows, they were covered in bloody handprints from when the facility had been sealed. Stan shuddered as he remembered the screaming that had occurred when Ford had made that call.

Looking at the first floor made him sick, so he switched to the stairwells. Since they were much the same, he started looking through the labs. Dr. Blandin’s seemed completely abandoned. There were machines everywhere, as well as white boards with long equations and blueprints for other machines. One machine in particular caught his eye, simply because it reminded him of the Stargate movies, but he somehow doubted that the two things were related.

He scanned through the different cameras in the lab, but there was no sign of Dr. Blandin. Maybe the paranoid buffoon had made it out alive? Or he was hiding in a blind spot of the cameras, Stan wouldn’t put it past the man to have known all along that they were present in his lab and exactly where to stand so that they couldn’t see him.

Stan moved on to the second floor; the lab of Dr. Lolph and Dr. Dundgren was a vastly different place. It had one room that was full of vegetation, like a miniature jungle. There was another room full of test tubes and cages, some with living animals inside of them, others with various plant life. What gave him hope though was the emergency exit door; it was barricaded in much the same fashion as the door on their own floor. He started scanning the cameras again, looking for any sign of the scientists.

“McGucket!” he said, and the other scientists looked over to him, Melody seemed to have paused mid-rant, and Ford looked relieved at the interruption.

“There a problem with the cameras Stan?” McGucket asked.

“No, but I was wondering if there was any kind of PA system in the other labs? I think Lolph and Dundgren may be alive, their door is barricaded, I was hoping we could try to contact them,” Stan said. McGucket looked thoughtful for a moment, nodding along as though a plan was forming in his mind.

“There was a PA system in the original design for the facility, back when it only had three underground levels,” McGucket said, “I don’t know if it’s still useable, but I’ll look into it.”

“Thanks,” Stan said. Melody took that as her cue to continue lecturing Ford on a scientist’s responsibility to consider the consequences of their work, and to remember that just because you _can_ do something doesn’t mean you _should_. Stan turned back to the monitors.

He flicked through the cameras on their own floor next; their barricade was just as they left it, and the other three rooms on this floor were empty. There was a kitchen and bedroom area in one room, another room full of towering computer banks that Stan considered a labyrinth, and an actual laboratory full of circuit boards and half-assembled computers and various inventions Stan didn’t understand the purpose of. The room they were currently in was the largest though, filled with wall to wall monitors that served as the only source of light and a desk cluttered with papers and empty containers of instant noodles.

McGucket may have claimed that he was experimenting on computers, but Stan was now certain that his true goal was to prove that a human being could survive on nothing more than instant noodles and coffee. The bright side of this was that McGucket had enough instant noodles to last the six of them three weeks, which would surely be enough time for them to have been rescued. The downside was that this diet had turned McGucket into a twitchy, malnourished man who often suffered hallucinations from a lack of sleep, so no one in their little band of survivors was particularly excited to try that diet for themselves.

Stan sighed and moved on to sub level four, the Ramirez lab. It was by far the tidiest lab in the facility, every room contained neat rows of plants and grow lights, with the exception of the main lab, which was full of microscopes and scientific equipment that Stan vaguely recognized but didn’t know the names of. He did recognize most of the plants though, there were corn stalks, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, wheat, and so much more.

“Whatcha looking for, Mr. Pines?” Stan didn’t react to the sudden appearance of Soos Ramirez behind him, and he _definitely_ didn’t shout enough profanities to make a sailor uncomfortable in his alarm. Though it would have been perfectly normal for him to have done so, expected even, since he’d just gone through something traumatic and having someone suddenly appear next to you was startling enough on its own. Not that it mattered, because he _didn’t_ _react_ _at_ _all_.

“Woah, dude, you okay there? Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Soos said. Stan glared at him.

“You didn’t scare me, I was just expressing my frustration at our current situation,” Stan said, “All those vegetables you guys got down there, and they’re all gonna die while we sit here wasting away on instant noodles. It’s a tragedy.”

This was quite possibly the worst lie Stan had ever tried to sell, which was impressive in and of itself because he had told some _really_ terrible lies in his time, but somehow Soos believed him.

“Gee, I’m sorry Mr. Pines. If I’da known I woulda grabbed something,” Soos said, “Too bad we can’t go back down, right dude?”

“Yeah,” Stan said, “It’s a real shame.”

Soos wandered back to Melody when Stan switched the cameras again, now to Ford’s lab. The zombies were thickest there, though Stan had no idea why. He could see Powers and Trigger, or what was left of them, shambling through the halls, and Ford’s lab techs were wandering the side labs. There were even a few office workers in the main lab, where the bound corpse of prisoner 4 still sat. Stan frowned at it. Other than the initial bite, it looked untouched. Stan flicked back to the cameras on the first floor. There were bodies there too, but the only ones that hadn’t risen were immensely damaged; the skin had been stripped from them leaving nothing but bone. One had had its head smashed in, presumably with the paper weight lying nearby. Soos claimed that only a head wound could stop a zombie. Stan was willing to add a lack of muscles to that list, but Soos’ theory had yet to be disproven. Stan brought up the camera from Ford’s lab again. Prisoner 4 was fully intact.

“Hey Ford, come here a sec,” Stan said, drawing the room’s attention once more.

“Stan we’re a little busy right now,” Ford said, but he walked over anyway.

“So I was looking through the cameras, and the only people who aren’t zombies now are us, the corpses too damaged to move, and Prisoner 4,” Stan said, focusing  the monitors on each group.

“So?”

“Look at the prisoner! He’s exactly as we left him. He hasn’t turned and he hasn’t been eaten, that’s a one of a kind situation. So my question is, why is he so special?” Stan asked. The others had filed over too, each looking confused and intrigued.

Ford’s eyes widened. “The second formula! It could have made him immune to the virus. If we could just get a blood sample, I’d know for sure.”

“We could make a vaccine,” Carla looked hopeful. “Maybe even a cure for those already infected.”

Stan frowned. “We’d need to go down there for that, we’d never survive long enough to get a sample.”

Carla’s face fell, and Stan couldn’t help but feel terrible. It was almost enough to make him take back his statement and offer to make the trip anyway. The appearance of the other prisoners in the lab put a stop to that idea.

“Were there any other subjects injected with that strain?” Melody asked.

Ford sighed. “One, but he escaped. I don’t know if he made it out, and if he did, we’d never find him.”

“I can rewind the video feed and check,” McGucket said, “All the footage is recorded.”

Stan took a step back from the monitors, and McGucket set the cameras to rewind. They watched the prisoner escape again, then flicked through the cameras on each floor to see where he got off.

“Why isn’t there a camera in the elevator?” Melody asked.

“Budget cuts,” Stan said, “Also the reason why I only have a taser and some pepper spray.”

Ford grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like. “penny pinching scum bags.”

Eventually they saw their man exit on the ground floor. Then the fire alarms went off and he booked it out the door.

“He’s alive,” Carla sounded relieved.

“He’s in the wind,” Stan said, “He knows what’s waiting for him if he gets caught again, he’s not gonna take any risks.”

“Where’s he gonna go?” Ford asked, “We just have to alert the authorities, they’ll shut down the borders and start a manhunt. We’ll get him back, get a blood sample, and then we can fix this mess, no problem.”

“We’re three floors underground in a quarantined facility,” Melody said, frowning, “If I remember correctly the only land lines are above ground, as are the routers, for the purposes of preventing research from being leaked.”

“That’s correct,” Carla said, at the same time as McGucket said, “Only officially.”

Stan raised an eyebrow at the older man, while Soos looked downright betrayed.

“Explain,” Melody said, eyes narrowed.

“I may have built my own router so that I could gain access to the internet,” McGucket said, “I haven’t tested it yet, but it should work just fine. It’ll be limited though, we’ll still be on the company’s internet and they block pretty much everything that could contact the outside world. Really it’ll just let us access the company email servers and anything obscure enough to pass through their filters.”

“You can’t take down the blocks?” Melody asked, “I thought you were a programmer or something.”

“Or something,” McGucket said, a hint of a smile on his face. “And I could probably get rid of them, but it’ll take time. I’d love to give you an estimate, but I don’t actually know what I’m up against yet.”

“Alright, then let’s hook up the router, send out an email to inform the Northwests what happened, then you can work on getting the filters down,” Ford said, “Carla and I will try and recreate our notes, maybe we can pull images off the cameras?”

Carla nodded, “We should be able to zoom in on the whiteboards. It won’t help us with everything, but it’ll be better than working from memory alone.”

“Soos and I can analyze the footage of the outbreak,” Melody said, “Maybe we’ll learn something about how it spreads.”

“Perfect,” Ford said, he was grinning now, “We’re going to figure this out and fix it. We can do this.”

 

#### NORTHWEST COMPANY SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FACILITY, OREGON

#### PRESENT DAY

They were running out of food. After hitting the two-week mark with no sign of being rescued, they’d all agreed to only eat two meals a day. It had helped, but they were still going to run out. And they now knew for a fact that any chance of them being rescued was gone.

Carla sighed as she looked down at their supply of instant noodles. They had to do something. They couldn’t ignore it anymore. So she called everyone into the main room. They were a pitiful sight. Everyone looked haggard, and none of them had been sleeping well.

“We need to do something about our food situation,” Carla said, “It doesn’t matter if we create a cure if none of us live to deliver it to the world. So, we need ideas. How do we avoid starvation?”

“There’s no other food on this floor,” McGucket said.

“There is on other floors,” Stan said, “As long as we’re quick and quiet and stick to the more abandoned floors we should be fine.”

“What makes you so sure that the others will have food?” Ford asked, “I certainly never kept food in my lab.”

“I’ve got it in mine,” Melody said, “After all, I was researching ways to end world hunger. My plants will still be alive, if we grab a few of them and get some of my equipment I could continue growing them up here. Then we’d have a steady source of food for as long as we need it.”

“That’s a great plan,” McGucket said, “But how do we decide who goes?”

“Dudes, I’ve totally got this,” Soos said, “I know where everything is, plus I totally know what Melody needs.

“Alright, but you can’t go alone,” Carla said, “We don’t know what those things are capable of.”

“I’ll go with him,” Ford said, “It’s my fault that we’re in this mess to begin with.”

“No,” Stan said, “You’re our only way out of this, we can’t risk you getting killed. I’ll go with him.”

Ford looked like he wanted to argue, so Carla cut him off. “Then it’s settled, Stan and Soos will go down to level four and retrieve Melody’s experiments.”

“I’ll make sure the floor is clear,” McGucket said, pulling up the camera feels for level four. It was just as empty as it usually was.

“All clear,” Stan said, “Let’s go rescue some plants.”

 

 

**Song for this chapter: Grand Experiment by No More Kings**


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
> 
> Okay so this chapter is the last of the exposition, which means that from now on you guys can look forward to some good, not-so-wholesome zombie action in the future! This chapter is also the reason that I decided to make my updates monthly, as it's 25 pages long. And thanks again to my wonderful beta Flint, for putting up with my stupidly long word documents and continuing to help me with this, I couldn't do this without him!
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy this latest installment, and that somebody catches all of my terrible references.

#### TACOMA DOME, WASHINGTON

#### THE END OF THE WORLD

Dipper could pinpoint the exact moment when everything went to hell. It was the same moment that the gunfire lost all semblance of order, the same moment that the screaming started up, and the same moment that Bill grabbed his arm and started dragging him towards the nearest exit.

“Where are we going?” Dipper asked. The screams were unnerving, so Dipper didn’t resist being pulled away, but he was still wary of letting Bill take him to God knows where. They may have bonded bit over the past few days, but that didn’t mean Dipper liked or trusted the man.

“Away from the screaming,” Bill said, “And if we’re lucky, out of this fucking death trap.”

The sporadic gunfire that had been echoing around the dome fell silent, but the screaming only got louder. Dipper didn’t want to think too hard about what that meant.

Bill pulled him through the crowd of panicking people, and Dipper was reminded of the time Mabel had taken him Black Friday shopping a few years ago. They’d gone to one of those big department stores and had waited amongst a large crowd of people for three hours before the doors finally opened, and then everything had been chaos. He hadn’t noticed at the time, but he later found out that a man had been stampeded to death in that initial rush to get into the store. Dipper decided to put more focus on not tripping, he had a feeling he wouldn’t live to regret it if he fell.

“Over there!” Dipper said, pointing to the emergency exit door hidden just behind the bleachers.

“Good eye kid,” Bill changed their course and led them through the sea of people, then they burst through the fire door to the sound of alarms.

Dipper froze at the sight before him, the military blockades were in shambles, and the bodies of both soldiers and civilians littered the ground. There were fires in the distance, and abandoned vehicles every few feet. The worst thing was the moaning though, some of it was pained, but most of it was animalistic, as if humanity had gone feral.

“What the hell happened out here?” Dipper said.

“That,” Bill said, pointing to a few civilians who were _eating_ a soldier about a hundred feet away. Dipper had never been so horrified in his life.

“Oh God.”

“We need to get out of here before they see us,” Bill said, pulling Dipper towards one of the abandoned military trucks.

“What about all of the people inside?” Dipper said, “We have to warn them! They’re not going to know what they’re up against.”

“Don’t be stupid kid,” Bill said, “There’s nothing you could do to explain what’s happening to the world right now, do you even understand it yourself?”

“Well, not exactly, but-”

“Look Pine Tree, if you wanna get yourself killed trying to play hero, fine, I won’t stop you. But if you want to live, you’ll get in this truck and do what I say, okay?” Bill said, holding open the door to the passenger side of the truck.

Dipper hesitated for a minute, but as harsh as Bill was about it, he was also right. There wasn’t really anything he could do, even if he _could_ warn everyone at once he didn’t really know what to warn them _about_. He sighed, “Okay.”

Bill grinned when Dipper hopped in the truck, then slammed the door and ran around to the other side. The civilians that had been eating the soldier perked up at the noise, and started running towards them. Bill managed to get into the truck and shut the door just as they reached the vehicle, and Dipper felt his stomach drop when they started slamming into the truck.

“Relax kid, they’re not gonna get in,” Bill said, searching the car, “Hey, can you check the glove box for keys?”

Dipper did as he was told, frowning as he pulled out a pistol and ammo instead of an owner’s manual. “What happens if we can’t find them?”

Bill shrugged, “I can hotwire it, but keys would be ideal because then we could lock it from the outside.”

Dipper had emptied the glove box, and while he’d found a very dangerous looking knife, there was no sign of keys.

“Aha!” Bill flipped the sun visor down and the keys tumbled into his lap. He gave Dipper a smug grin as he started the car.

Bill pulled away from the building and made his way towards the parking lot exit. Dipper tried not to squeak when he saw what was waiting at the barricade. “Bill.”

“Yeah Pine Tree?”

“Shouldn’t you maybe slow down a bit?”

“Nope!” Bill said cheerily, “We’re just gonna ram straight through, it’ll be fine.”

Dipper swore and pulled his seatbelt on, Bill laughed at him for being nervous, and the sea of mangled people continued to flood through the ruined barricade, completely uncaring of the truck that was about to drive right through them.

“Bill you can’t just run people over,” Dipper said, “You could _kill_ someone. You know, through _vehicular manslaughter_ . One of the things people go to _jail_ for.”

“Pretty sure no one’s gonna care,” Bill said, “Especially since these guys keep eating people.”

“Bill! That’s not how laws work!”

“Sure it is! If there’s no one left to enforce the laws, then the laws no longer exist!”

“Well what about the laws of physics?” Dipper said, “If you hit these people at the wrong angle, or if someone gets jammed under the wheel, you’ll flip the truck. And we’ll die.”

“We’re not gonna die if I flip the truck kid,” Bill said, “You worry too much.”

“No, the impact won’t kill us, but when we get swarmed by whoever survives your hit and run tactics, we’ll be eaten alive,” Dipper said, “Assuming you’re right, and that’s what these people want, anyway.”

“I am right, but they’re not people,” Bill said. He turned around though, and Dipper breathed a sigh of relief. Until there was a very loud thump as the truck drove over something.

“What that fuck was that?” Dipper said, turning in his seat to look behind them. Imagine his surprise when a _person_ stood up from behind the truck. Or, what was left of a person anyway. They looked entirely too bloody to be walking. “How the fuck?”

Bill switched gears without warning and reversed over the guy with a sickening crunch.

“Bill! What the fuck was that?” Dipper was trying to keep his voice level. He was failing.

“Ten points,” Bill shrugged, then frowned when the guy stood up _again_ . “Or it _would_ be, if this fucker would just stay down.”

“Jesus Christ, I got in a car with a maniac,” Dipper said, clinging to his seat belt for dear life as Bill hit the poor man for a third time. He didn’t get up again.

“Ha! Take that, you cannibal bastard!” Bill raised his hand for a high five, and Dipper gave him a look of horror. “C’mon Pine Tree, don’t you know it’s rude to leave a guy hanging?”

“You just killed a man!” Dipper almost flinched at the volume of his voice, but Bill’s sigh of disappointment just made him more outraged. “If you actually expect me to applaud you for murder, you’re even more violently insane than I thought!”

“I am _not_ violently insane Pine Tree,” Bill said, voice growing serious. Then he cracked a grin and his carefree joy was back. “I’m insanely violent!”

Dipper spluttered incoherently for a moment, then made the decision that putting up with Bill’s bullshit wasn’t worth the man’s protection. He was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. He was smarter than anyone else he’d ever met, and whatever was happening surely couldn’t be that dangerous. He just had to get somewhere safe and hold tight till everything blew over. Piece of cake, really.

He grabbed the door handle just as the locks clicked. “Bill, unlock the door.”

“No, you’re going to do something stupid.”

“Bill! You can’t just-” Dipper was cut off by a woman bodily slamming into his door.

“Holy fuck, what happened to her?” Bill was just as shocked as he was. The woman’s throat had clearly been torn out, yet that wasn’t stopping her from trying to use her body as a battering ram. But worse than the mess of her throat was her eyes, they looked dead. There was no rage or intent in her gaze, no spark to indicate that there was someone alive and fighting for control. There was just...nothing.

A second later and a second person was trying to force their way into the car, though how he was managing to avoid tripping over his own intestines was a mystery to Dipper, one he had no interest in solving.

“Bill?”

“Yeah Pine Tree?”

“Drive.”

 

#### CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF THE ARTS

#### THE END OF THE WORLD

Pacifica Northwest had seen chaos before. Starbucks during finals week was chaos. Mabel’s bedroom when she got a new idea for a project was chaos. A frat party that had just been busted by police was chaos. Her part-time job as a wedding planner’s assistant was chaos like she had never thought possible.

None of that was enough to prepare her for zombie apocalypse chaos.

People were everywhere. Running and shouting at each other and driving across the main quad. They had all known that something was going down weeks ago, shutting down communication to half of the West Coast hadn’t exactly been subtle, but no one had really known what it was and it hadn’t been affecting them so no one really cared either.

That all changed when an Oregon news station decided to start broadcasting what was _actually_ happening up there, instead of the government bullshit they were supposed to be spewing. That was all good and well too, it even got the government to fess up to what was happening, though communication to the infected states still hadn’t been reestablished. Then this morning’s report came back, saying that the infection had spread to California and, shockingly enough, the East Coast.

That was the report that had sent her campus spiralling into anarchy.

She thought that it was a bit of an overreaction, just because California was absolutely massive and they were in the southern end of it, but who was she to impose logic and reason on panicky college students?

She’d been in class when the report had aired, so she hadn’t been able to get off campus before everyone had started their panicked and absolutely unnecessary evacuation. However when the declaration of a state of emergency had caused the entire class’s phones to go off all at once, it had become fairly obvious that something was going down. Unfortunately for them though, their professor decided that anyone who left the room could consider themselves failed. Some people had left anyway. Pacifica was not one of them.

Her father had been furious with her decision to pursue design instead of preparing to take over the Northwest Company. Her freshman year had been rough, to say the least. However she and her parents had worked out a deal after she didn’t come home for the summer, her mother’s doing most likely, but it worked in her favor so she had taken it. Essentially, as long as she got A’s in all of her classes and agreed to enter the summer internship program for the company, her parents would pay for her tuition at Cal Arts. But if her grades started slipping, she’d transfer to an Ivy League and get her degree in business. It wasn’t a great deal, but she knew that she could keep her grades up so long as she worked hard and stayed focused. It wasn’t easy, but she managed.

However this deal meant that by the time she was released from class the student body had descended into full on panic mode, and now she was stuck in the worst traffic jam ever. She was tempted to just abandon her car and walk, but she didn’t want to risk it getting damaged. Her car was a Lamborghini, it was expensive, and it was her baby, so she would be damned if she was going to let some asshole rearend it because she left it parked in the street.

She sighed and turned on the radio.

“-This whole thing is just one big hoax-”

“KGW is _full_ of dishonest reporters, they’re so dishonest-”

“-It’s God’s punish-”

“-pocalypse isn’t coming, it’s already here!”

“-These people are victims, not enemies-”

“-matter is, we can’t just go around shooting-”

“-They’re dead, no if’s, and’s, or-”

“-the president released this statement-”

Pacifica turned off the radio.

“Whatever happened to playing music?” she asked her empty car. The car held no answer for her, just the constant thrum of the engine.

The line of traffic inched forward, and Pacifica groaned as they came to a stop once again.

“Forget zombies, _this_ is the thing that’s going to kill me.”

This was it, she was cracking. As much as she hated using her phone while she was driving, this was torture. She was scrolling through Facebook when she got a call from Mabel, a welcome distraction from the panic of her Newsfeed.

“Paz! Where are you? Is everything okay?” Mabel sounded just as panicked as the rest of the world. Dammit.

“Yeah, I’m fine Mabes. Just got caught in traffic,” Pacifica said.

“Oh, okay,” Mabel sounded relieved. “I was just worried because you’re usually home sooner than this, and the girls and I have kind of overrun your apartment.”

Oh. Right. Mabel was just worried because she was late. “No worries here, unless I go stir crazy. Have you managed to get in contact with Dipper yet?”

“No, all my calls are still going straight to voicemail,” Mabel said. Pacifica frowned, not being able to check on Dipper was really getting to Mabel. When this was over Pacifica was going to sue whatever asshole had turned off communication in Washington until they didn’t have so much as a penny left to them.

“I’m sure he’s alright Mabes, Dipper’s smart, he’ll know how to get through whatever this thing is,” Pacifica said, trying to sound more sure than she felt. Oh, Dipper was smart, that was undeniable, but he’d never been athletically inclined. He could run pretty fast, but not for very long, and while he had cultivated all the strength one could possibly have while possessing noodle arms, he still had noodle arms. He could run and he could hide, but if he needed to fight?

“I know he’s okay Paz, I can feel it with twin telepathy,” Mabel said, “But I’m still worried about him.”

“I know, but there’s nothing we can do but wait right now,” Pacifica said, “This’ll all blow over soon enough, and then we can make him get a satellite phone, like a sensible person.”

Mabel laughed a bit, “Knowing him he’d lose it.”

“We’ll duct tape it to his regular phone,” Pacifica said, “Or to his favorite book.”

“The book would probably be safer,” Mabel said, “Books are the only things he’s never lost.”

“Of course they are,” Pacifica said, laughing a bit as traffic inched forward again. Her laugh was replaced by a groan when her phone got a second call.

“Paz?”

“My dad’s calling me,” Pacifica said, “He probably heard the news and wants me to leave the country or some bullshit.”

“Ah. Well we can talk when you get back then. Good luck with your parents!”

“Thanks Mabel,” Pacifica sighed as she switched the call over. “Hey.”

“Oh thank goodness you’re alright,” came her mother’s voice, “We just saw the news, where are you?”

“Stuck in traffic, trying to get home,” Pacifica said, “People are panicking because Northern California’s been infected. They’re overreacting.”

“No, they’re really not,” said her father, “Haven’t you been checking the company email?”

Pacifica’s blood ran cold. “No, I’ve been focusing on finals. Why?”

“It doesn’t matter,” her mother said, “We just need you to get out of the States.”

“No, answer my questions,” Pacifica said, “What does our company have to do with this?”

“It doesn’t matter, your safety is our priority,” her mother said, “Just get to an airport, we’ll have a jet waiting. You can even bring your little girlfriend.”

“Mom, no, people are dead,” Pacifica said, “Mabel’s _twin brother_ is in Washington right now, so you’re going to tell me what the company did or I’ll find out for myself and make sure everyone knows about it!”

“Pacifica! This is not the time to argue!” he father said, “We are your parents and you will obey us!”

“No! I’m not a kid anymore, I can make my own decisions. Now _tell me what happened_.”

“An experiment at the Oregon facility was rushed and went wrong, alright?” her mother said, “But it wasn’t our call Pacifica, there was a government agency involved, even if we were in the States right now we couldn’t have done anything about it.”

“So you’re just pawning off responsibility on someone else?” Pacifica asked, “If a project going wrong is causing a fucking _zombie apocalypse_ , don’t you think maybe it shouldn’t have ever been approved in the first place?”

“Language, Pacifica!” her mother scolded.

“The project would never have been dangerous if it hadn’t been rushed,” her father said, “They’d only just moved on to trials on rodents, and it was meant to make the human race more durable. Strengthen immune systems and increase endurance, and the lead scientist was someone we trusted. If his work hadn’t been rushed there never would have been an issue, I’m certain of it.”

“Why was it rushed? And how did anyone hear about it? I thought the Oregon facility was top secret, not even our biggest investors have access to those projects,” Pacifica said. She may not have wanted to take over the company, but that didn’t mean she didn’t pay attention to it.

“We don’t know how the project was discovered, just that some general thought he could use it to create super soldiers,” her father said, “But it doesn’t matter right now. What matters is getting you somewhere safe until the cure can be administered, then I promise you we’ll get to the bottom of all of this.”

“There’s a cure?” Pacifica said, “Why haven’t you told the news? The media is whipping the country into a frenzy!”

“Because technically it hasn’t been created yet,” he said, “We haven’t had any contact with the facility since the original email, but they seemed confident that they could create a cure if they could get blood from an escaped convict, apparently the serum he was injected with makes him immune. We’ll send a team to rescue the scientists from quarantine as soon as the government has regained control of Oregon-”

“What? Dad how can you expect the government to regain control of the state without a cure? They can’t even contain the virus!”

“I’m sorry Pacifica but it’s the only option we have, you know the protocol for ending a quarantine requires a Northwest, and none of us can go in until it’s safe again.”

“Can’t or won’t?” Pacifica asked, “Because I refuse to just sit around waiting while people are dying!”

“Pacifica it’s too dangerous, the entire state has been completely overrun!” her mother said, “Now please, do as you’re told and evacuate.”

“No! If there’s something I can do to help end this I’m going to do it. I have to at least try,” Pacifica said, “I’m going to the Oregon facility, and I’m going to get those people out.”

“Pacifica Elise Northwest, I forbid you-”

Pacifica hung up. She was going to get in so much trouble for that. Traffic started moving again, but instead of moving forward she turned off into the nearest parking lot. She needed to go tell the girls what she’d learned. It was too much to hope for that they’d go with her, but they still deserved to know what was going on.

She put her car in park and grabbed her stuff. It was time to go stop a zombie apocalypse.

 

#### PORTLAND, OREGON

#### THE END OF THE WORLD

“That’s it!” Wendy said, tossing her cards to the ground, “I’m done! If I have to stay in this apartment for so much as a second more I’m going to lose it.”

Robbie sighed. Wendy had never been very patient, and she’d been on edge since that first night. Honestly he was surprised she’d managed to go this long without snapping, not that he disagreed with her. Nine days with Nate and Lee was pushing it, the most patient person in the world wouldn’t be happy with the arrangement.

“We’re supposed to stay inside until someone comes to get us,” Thompson said. It had been his mantra since this mess started.

“Yeah, but that was when people were actually _trying_ to get us!” Wendy fired back, “And if you were paying attention to KGW, then you would know that those efforts stopped four days ago, and more importantly, the entire fucking west coast is being overrun by _fucking zombies_!”

“Bullshit!” Lee said, “This is just some elaborate prank put on by some jackass with too much time on his hands. Zombies _do not exist_. They’re the products of shitty B-Horror movies and Hollywood’s inability to fact check. They’re scientifically impossible.”

“Then how do you explain everything that’s going on?” Nate asked, “It makes perfect sense to me. This is why the government lied about knowing what it was, because no one would take it seriously if they started warning us about _zombies_. And those screams we keep hearing are the most straight up zombie noises I’ve ever heard.”

“No way,” Lee said, “Robbie, back me up on this! There’s no way for a corpse to _rise from the dead_ and eat people!”

“Look, Lee, I’d love to tell you what you want to hear, but I seriously have no idea,” Robbie said, “I’m studying to be a pediatric nurse, not a...honestly I’m not even sure what medical field this would fall under. Neurology maybe? Or Biochem.”

“What’s up with that pediatric stuff anyway?” Wendy asked, “You hate children.”

“I don’t hate children,” Robbie said, “I just hate the little monsters you call brothers.”

Wendy’s face fell a bit, and Robbie mentally berated himself for mentioning her family. She would never admit to it, but she was worried sick about them.

“I’m sure they’re alright Wendy. They’re at your cousin’s logging camp in Salem with your dad right?” Wendy nodded, and Robbie grinned, “Then they’re probably the safest people in Oregon. That camp is filled to bursting with all of the scariest people in the state, minus you of course.”

Wendy rolled her eyes at him, but she also cracked a small smile. “Gee thanks Robbie. You really know how to make a girl feel special.”

Nate glared at the both of them. “Seriously? Just gonna move on from the issue of _fucking zombies_?”

“Well what do you want us to do about it?” Robbie asked, “Try and escape the city ourselves? Unarmed and with no destination?”

“What about the logging camp?” Nate said, “You _just_ said it was the safest place in the state.”

Robbie frowned at him, “Okay, so we go to Salem. Or at least, we try to go to Salem and _die_ , because we’re still unarmed.”

“Guys, this is stupid,” Lee said, “There’s no such thing as zombies. It’s just a disease that’s being blown out of proportion.”

“Zombies or not, can we at least agree that anyone infected is _dangerous_?” Robbie said, “Because as much as I hate the idea of a zombie apocalypse, we can’t deny that the city has fallen.”

Lee nodded his assent, so Robbie went back to their strategizing. “So. Weapons? We don’t have them, so what do we wanna do about it?”

“Wendy has an axe,” Tambry said, and Robbie almost sighed. Even when the world was ending his girlfriend wouldn’t put her phone down. What was she even looking at anymore?

Wendy frowned, “First off, it’s a hatchet, not an axe. Second off, it’s back in our apartment, and therefore unhelpful.”

“Can’t we just run across the street and grab it real quick?” Nate asked, “It’s not like your apartment is far away.”

“It doesn’t have to be far away to be dangerous,” Thompson said, “We need to be careful. Isn’t there anything in here we could use?”

Nate looked thoughtful, “Well, I’ve still got a baseball bat from when I had that sports phase. Would that work?”

“For one of us, sure,” Lee said, “But who do we trust enough to protect everyone else?”

“Wendy,” Nate, Tambry, Robbie, and Thompson answered immediately.

“Alright, fair,” Lee said, though Wendy looked slightly nervous at the prospect.

“Do we have anything else?” She asked, “I’m flattered that you guys trust me enough to protect you all, but I’d feel better if we had at least one other person armed.”

“You guys have got kitchen knives, right?” Tambry asked. Lee made a noncommittal gesture in return. “Seriously? You don’t even know what’s in your own kitchen?”

Nate shrugged, “It’s not like we do an awful lot of cooking, Tambers.”

Tambry glared at him, “Don’t call me that.”

“Ok, how about we just search the entire apartment and see what we find?” Wendy suggested, “Then we can pick the best weapons, and maybe even get something for everyone. Even if it’s just a pocket knife, it’ll be better than nothing. When we get to me and Tambry’s place we can get some stuff from there too, since I know we’ve got plenty of things that could be useful.”

“Could we maybe go to my and Robbie’s apartment after?” Thompson asked, “I need to get my spare inhaler and my refills.”

“He’s got a van too, if that sweetens the deal any,” Robbie said. He wanted to grab some stuff from home too.

“Yeah, we can do that,” Wendy said, “It’s not far either, and that way we can all pack a bag of necessities. We can figure out where to go from there. For now, let’s find anything that might be useful.”

Robbie felt better now that they had a plan, and they all split up to look for weapons and anything else that might be useful. In the end they found a baseball bat, a swiss army knife, a cigarette lighter, a frying pan, three ninja stars, a box of fireworks, three empty beer bottles, and a whisk.

“Alright Wendy, how’d we do?” Nate asked. Robbie wasn’t sure when Wendy became their resident weapons expert, but he wasn’t going to argue the decision.

“Well the bat and the frying pan will work for bashing things,” Wendy said, “The knife is a useful tool and could be used in close quarters, same for the bottles if we break ‘em. Cigarette lighter could also come in handy, and we might be able to use some of the smaller fireworks as distractions, and maybe the Roman Candles could be weapons if we’re really desperate. The ninja stars would be useful if they were sharper, but honestly I’m not sure any of us have the skill to use them anyway.”

“And the whisk?” Nate asked, slightly amused.

“Yeah, how about we _not_ use whisks,” Robbie said, wondering who had decided to add it to their pile in the first place.

“Agreed,” Wendy said, “Now who wants what?”

Wendy ended up with the baseball bat, and Nate with the frying pan. Robbie took custody of the swiss army knife and cigarette lighter, while Thompson, Tamby, and Lee got broken bottles. Wendy also packed a bag with the fireworks she and Nate deemed as worth carrying: cherry bombs, roman candles, poppers, and a couple of the large ones that Wendy said could work as flares if they needed them. Nate and Lee also had backpacks, but Robbie didn’t know what they’d decided to put in them.

“Anything else we wanna grab?” Wendy asked, “Once we leave, we’re not coming back.”

“Food?” Thompson asked.

“Nate and Lee only have junk food,” Robbie said, scrunching his nose in distaste, “And while cheese puffs won’t go bad on us, we also can’t sustain ourselves on cheese flavored chemicals and air.”

“Wendy and I have loads of non perishables that we can grab,” Tambry said, and that was the end of the matter.

With all that sorted they cautiously made their way out of the apartment. Robbie wasn’t sure what he expected the hallway to look like, but in the end the normalcy of it all was a bit anti-climatic.

“Stairs or elevator?” Tambry asked. Wendy looked pensive.

“The stairs will have more room, and we’ll know what we’re walking into when we get downstairs. If there’s anything waiting in the lobby the elevator would be a good place to trap us,” Wendy led the way to the stairs, looking through the glass window before slowly opening the door.

“Do you see anything?” Lee asked. The response was a guttural yell from below them and the sound of running feet. Wendy shut the door faster than Robbie had ever seen her move before.

“New plan, elevator, now!”

They followed her back down the hall, pouring on speed as they heard more noise from the stairwell. Nate got there first, and started pushing the down button with more urgency than Robbie had ever seen from his friend. It didn’t speed up the process though.

Something slammed into the stairwell door, and they all nearly jumped out of their skins. Thompson was whimpering prayers that Robbie couldn’t understand, and they each grew tenser with every pound on the door.

They breathed a sigh of relief when the elevator dinged, but it was retracted almost immediately as the door to the stairwell burst open. The elevator opened just as a rabid looking woman burst into the hall. She was covered in blood, and Robbie swore that there were bullet holes in her chest. She was making all sorts of animalistic noises, and her mouth was bloody.

They piled into the elevator as the woman barreled towards them, Wendy stayed outside though.

“Wendy! What the hell are you doing?” Nate said, arm in the way of the door to keep it open for her.

“The doors won’t shut before she gets to us,”  Wendy said, just in time for the woman to reach her. Wendy swung the bat at the woman’s head, smashing through her skull and splattering blood everywhere.

“Holy fuck!” Lee looked horrified. “You just killed a woman!”

Wendy looked just as shocked as the rest of them. “Oh my god, I didn’t think I put that much force into it! I was only trying to knock her out!”

“It was self defense,” Tambry said hurriedly, “Now get in the elevator before more of them show up.”

Wendy did as told, and Lee was looking at Tambry with horror as the doors slid shut.

“A woman is dead Tambers, how can you be so callous?” Lee asked. Tambry glared at him.

“Didn’t you see the blood in her mouth? Or the bullet wounds in her chest? I know you don’t believe it Lee, but we’re dealing with zombies, and they’re already dead. _You_ may not have been watching the news but _I_ have! You can’t hesitate with these things, you have to go for the head and show no mercy. And you shouldn’t have to anyway, because again, they’re _already dead_. That’s probably why Wendy’s swing went right through that woman’s skull, because it was already rotting.”

Robbie pressed the button for the ground floor, and watched the numbers descend. “Get ready guys, there could be any number of things on the other side of the door. We need to be ready for a fight. We’ll worry about everything else when we get to Wendy and Tambry’s place.”

The door pinged and slid open, revealing what was left of the building’s lobby. There was blood and overturned furniture all over the room, two corpses, and three...zombies. And wow was that the most horrible thing that Robbie had ever seen. The zombies looked up as the door to the elevator opened, and Wendy, Tambry, and Nate stepped out to meet them. But before the others could follow, Lee hit the button for floor one and the elevator doors slid shut again. Robbie was going to kill him for that.

 

#### CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF THE ARTS

#### THE END OF THE WORLD

Mabel had always prided herself on her ability to believe in things. Blind faith was her specialty, and as such she’d believed in things like the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus until she twelve. She _still_ believed in ghosts, mermaids, and Bigfoot, even if the hunter TV shows were a bit of a joke. And after reading a few books on Neverland fairies when she was seven, she would burst into tears whenever anyone claimed they didn’t believe in them; she stopped crying at about ten, but she didn’t stop chanting “I do believe in fairies” until she was fourteen, and even now she couldn’t bring herself to say she didn’t believe in them. For most of her life, she’d liked to think she would believe anything.

Then KGW had run a report on “Zombageddon”, and for the first time ever, Mabel found herself in denial.

“There’s just no way it’s real,” she said, trying to keep the desperation out of her voice. Candy and Grenda were not convinced. “The government would never allow so many states to be overrun. And I mean. Come on. _Zombies_ ? _Really_? Next they’ll be telling us that there’s a tornado full of sharks about to hit LA.”

“Hey, leave Sharknado out of this!” Grenda said, “Those movies were hilarious, and Finn was some world class eye candy.”

“Fine, then next they’ll be telling us that the Finding Bigfoot team _actually_ found Bigfoot,” Mabel amended.

“I thought you believed in Bigfoot?” Candy asked, smirking slightly.

“I do,” Mabel said, “But we all know that those TV goons do everything in their power to make sure that they never find solid proof of anything.”

Candy looked solemn, “That’s true.”

“The hunt for Cryptids will forever be doomed by the idiocy of reality TV,” Grenda said.

Candy snorted, “You sound like Dipper.”

The thought of her brother reminded her why she was in denial in the first place. Mabel checked her phone again, and sent him another text for good measure. He still wasn’t responding, and she hadn’t heard a peep from him since Washington had declared a State of Emergency. Facebook, Snapchat, tumblr, Twitter; all of it was silent. Candy and Grenda noticed the change in her demeanor immediately, and all humor left them.

“He’s alright Mabel,” Candy gave her a reassuring smile, “He survived our Galentine's Day Slumber Party Extravaganza, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, he did,” Mabel said, smiling fondly at the memory. “He claims that he’s still finding glitter in his pajamas though.”

“Well if he can survive that level of glitter then he can survive anything,” Grenda said.

“I know, I know,” Mabel sighed, “I just wish I could hear his voice. Just to be sure, ya know?”

Candy nodded sympathetically. She was lucky, he family was safe and sound on their annual trip South Korea, though that also meant that she couldn’t contact them. At least Mabel and Grenda had been able to call their parents and make sure they were alright. The only reason that the Pines and Grenda’s mothers weren’t on their way to LA right now was because Piedmont was being evacuated. Apparently the government’s new strategy for containment was to evacuate areas before the infection reached them. Mabel wasn’t certain how well that would work with the infected still able to roam around on their own, but at least it minimized casualties.

“Why’d the zombie apocalypse have to break out _now_?” Mabel asked, she was done trying to deny it. It wasn’t her nature. “Just a few more weeks and Dipper would have been back home for the summer.”

They fell into silence, the only sound that of FOX News. Mabel frowned, she’d originally turned it on because it was the only news station that was with her in denying the existence of zombies, but now it was just annoying. Who cared about vegan tacos when the world was ending?

She switched to CNN, where they were interviewing different experts about what should be done. Some people were actual experts, there was an NRA representative and a woman from the CDC, but then there was also some nerd claiming to be an expert on zombie media, a doomsday prepper, and some actors from a zombie TV show that had been popular when she was in middle school. The NRA representative and the nerd were going on about the importance of arming yourself, while the prepper was arguing that you couldn’t eat a gun, so food was the most important thing. Mabel thought that they all made pretty valid points.

They were still watching the news when there was a knock at the door, followed by some loud squealing courtesy of Waddles. Mabel bounced into the hall and opened the door, revealing a rather frazzled looking Pacifica.

“Mabel it is madness out there!” she said, striding into the apartment. “Everyone is panicking, traffic is at a standstill; I had to park the Lamborghini and _walk_ here, it’s so backed up.”

“Did you see any zombies though?” Grenda asked. Pacifica rolled her eyes.

“No, I didn’t. Because the infection is _nowhere near us_. That’s why all this panic is so unnecessary,” Pacifica said. Then she started glaring at the wall. Mabel recognized that expression, it was the one Paz wore whenever she talked about-- “My parents called too. And you’re never going to guess what they said.”

“Are they trying to force you into marrying some prince again?” Candy asked, “Because if so that is really ill timed.”

Pacifica rolled her eyes and pulled out her laptop. “No, it was a little more relevant than that.”

Pacifica had settled in at the kitchen bar, and the other girls crowded around her to see what she was doing.

“They told you to check your email?” Mabel asked, raising an eyebrow at the familiar logo of the Northwest Company.

“No, they told me to grab you and get get on a plane,” Pacifica said, “But they let slip that there was an email with information about what’s going on.”

“Why would NC have info about zombies?” Candy asked.

“Because this whole mess was caused by an NC scientist,” Pacifica said, glaring as she opened an email that was flagged three times as being urgent. “According to this email the guy thinks he can make a cure, but he needs a blood sample from one of his test subjects, who apparently escaped during the initial breakout.”

“Test subjects?” Candy looked faintly horrified.

“Convicts from death row,” Pacifica said, pulling open the mug shot of the one who’d escaped.  Mabel didn’t like the look of him. He looked dangerous. Underneath the mugshot it said he’d been convicted of treason and murder.

“That’s disgusting,” Candy’s nose scrunched in distaste, “I knew your dad was a dick, but I never thought he’d allow human testing.”

“He says he didn’t,” Pacifica said, closing the mugshot and scanning through the email again. “Apparently some government agency found out and rushed the project, this email says the same thing. If they had been refused, the agency would have seized the research of Dr. Pines and-”

“Did you just say Pines?” Mabel interrupted. She pulled the laptop from Pacifica’s hands and spun it towards herself, then scanned the email for the list of scientists who’d sent it.

“Please send help immediately, signed Dr. Fiddleford H. McGucket, Dr. Melody Ramirez, Dr. Jesus Ramirez, Dr. Carla McCorkle, Dr. Stanford Pines, and Mr. Stanley Pines,” Mabel read aloud, then turned to her friends, “Those are my great uncles. Dipper and I used to visit them in the summers when we were kids. Oh my god, Great Uncle Ford started the zombie apocalypse.”

Pacifica grabbed her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “They’re all trapped in the underground facility, and they triggered the quarantine protocols in an attempt to stop the spread. They can only get out if someone types in the release codes from outside the building, and only the Northwests have those codes and even if I passed them on to someone else the panel can only be opened with a fingerprint scan from a family member. My dad thought it’d be more secure that way.”

“So they’re stuck then,” Grenda said, “And without them the world doesn’t stand a chance.”

Pacifica’s eyes hardened with determination. “No, it doesn’t. But that’s why I’m going to Oregon to get them out.”

“Are your parents sending an escort to help?” Candy asked.

“No,” Pacifica said, glaring at the wall again. “They would never encourage me to disobey them. It’s just gonna be me.”

Mabel’s eyes went wide. “What? No, Paz, that’s way too dangerous.”

“I can’t just sit here doing nothing Mabel!” Pacifica said.

“Well you can’t go marching into the heart of zombie land on your own either,” Mabel said, “That’s why I’m going with you.”

“Mabel, I could never ask you to do that,” Pacifica said.

“You’re not asking, I’m telling. I’m going with you,” Mabel said, giving Pacifica her best this-discussion-is-over glare.

“Me too,” Candy said, “The world needs a cure, and you two will need all the help you can get.”

“Oh me three!” Grenda said, “No way am I gonna miss the chance to bash in the heads of some zombies!”

Pacifica looked crossed between feeling ecstatic and afraid to hope. “Are you guys sure about this? It’s going to be dangerous. We might not make it back.”

“We’re sure, Pacifica,” Candy said, “Even if the world wasn’t at stake, you’re our friend. We’d never leave you to do something like this alone.”

Mabel grinned, “It’s settled then. We’re going on a road trip to save the world!”

 

#### PORTLAND, OREGON

#### THE END OF THE WORLD

Tambry was going to kill Lee.

Well, she would assuming that she survived.

“Aim for the head Nate!” Wendy shouted, though how she was managing to fight her own zombie and keep an eye Nate’s fight too was a mystery to Tambry. Speaking of her own zombie, hers was a dick. Literally.

“Why. The fuck. Was this guy in a dick suit during the _fucking apocalypse_ ?” Tambry jerked away from the zombie’s mouth as he lunged towards her. Stabbing someone with a bottle was _not_ as easy as the action movies made it look.

“I would think he put the suit on _before_ he knew it was the apocalypse, Tambers,” Nate said.

“Now is not the time for snark, asshole!” Tambry shouted back to him. There was a loud smashing sound, and then Wendy was by her side, though a little bloodier than before. “You good, Wendy?”

“Just peachy,” Wendy grumbled, swinging at the dick zombie and forcing him back. “If I knock him down, think you can get a good shot in?”

“Yeah,” Tambry said, readjusting her grip on the bottle neck, “Let’s do it.”

Wendy swung the bat again, this time at the zombie’s knees, and he went down. Tambry pounced, driving her bottle through the thing’s eye. It struggled underneath her, but then she pushed through it’s skull in an explosion of blood and it stopped moving. Tambry frowned at her now ruined top, but at least it hadn’t gotten on her face.

“Alright, Tambry!” Wendy said, grinning.

“Guys? A little help here!” Nate shouted, and Wendy rushed over to help him. Between the two of them they managed to get the final zombie down, though Tambry thought that turning the thing’s skull into a pile of red mush was a bit excessive.

The elevator dinged, and then slid open to reveal Robbie, Thompson, and Lee. Robbie and Thompson pushed Lee out of the elevator, but their glares were nothing compared to the one Tambry was giving him.

“Dude!” Nate marched forward and punched Lee in the arm. “I can’t believe you ditched us like that!”

“I’m sorry, I panicked!” Lee said, “But you guys are okay, right?”

“This time,” Wendy said, her voice lacking it’s usual warmth. Tambry had seen her mad before, but never like this. “If you abandon us like that every time you see a zombie, you’re going to get us all killed. We have strength in numbers, by splitting us up like that you make us weak.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” Lee said. He looked very apologetic, it was almost enough to make Tambry forgive him. Almost.

She grabbed Lee by the collar and forced him to look her in the eye. “If you endanger the group again, we’ll leave you behind. Am I clear?”

“Yeah! Crystal!” Lee squawked.

“Good,” Tambry released him, then turned towards the door. “Let’s get going. I’d rather we get more weapons before running into those things again.”

The group followed her out of the building, though she faltered when they made it outside. The entire city was trashed. There were bodies everywhere, and some of the buildings across town had smoke rising from them. The whole world smelled like death, blood, and garbage. She’d known that Portland wasn’t really in good shape anymore, but seeing it for herself made it more real.

“Holy shit,” Robbie’s voice was barely audible.

“Yeah,” Tambry whispered back, grabbing his hand for comfort. He gave her a reassuring squeeze.

“Come on,” Wendy said, snapping out of her shock and making her way down the street. “We need to get back inside. We’re too exposed out here.”

They followed her down the street, then ran across to her and Wendy’s apartment building. Their lobby was trashed too, but it was also empty of any zombies. They crept over to the elevator, and it opened as soon as they pressed the button. Though Tambry could have gone without the smell of the corpse rotting in the corner.

“Oh god,” Thompson looked like he was going to be sick.

“Is it dead?” Nate asked, “Like, _dead_ dead. Not, trying-to-eat-us dead.”

“Only one way to find out,” Wendy said, creeping forward and poking it with her baseball bat. It slumped forward a bit, but otherwise didn’t react. They all breathed a sigh of relief.

“Rargghhhhhh!” The scream came from their left, and a zombie burst from the door to the stairwell.

“Shit!” Robbie said, then pushed Tambry into the elevator. Lee was right behind them. “Everybody in!”

Nate grabbed Wendy by the arm and pulled her into the elevator, just as a second zombie burst from the stairwell. Lee was bashing the close door button, and for once in her life Tambry was glad that her building supervisor never fixed the elevator sensor that would have stopped it from closing when people were in the way.

The doors slid closed just as Thompson slipped into the elevator, leaving the zombies to slam into the doors as they started moving up.

“That’s gonna be a problem when we leave, isn’t it?” Nate asked.

“Yeah,” Wendy said, “It might be safer to take the fire escape down this time.”

“Ladders and backpacks and weapons don’t really mix well, Wendy,” Robbie said.

“Neither do zombies and humans and closed in spaces, Robbie,” she retorted.

“We could try waiting them out,” Thompson suggested.

“How can we wait them out if we can’t see when they leave?” Nate scoffed.

“We don’t have time anyway,” Wendy said, “We need to get to Robbie and Thompson’s before sunset. I don’t wanna be outside after dark.”

Tambry shuddered as she thought back to the nights they’d spent holled up at Nate and Lee’s place. The zombies must have been more active at night, because there was always more noise then. More screaming.

The elevator dinged when they reached the sixth floor, then slid open to reveal an empty hallway. Tambry led the way to the apartment, her key already in hand. She breathed a sigh of relief as she walked into her own space. She wished they could stay.

Wendy bolted the door shut as soon as everyone was inside. “Alright, we need to get weapons and food. Non perishables and lightweight stuff only.”

“We’ve got some water bottles too, if anyone wants to fill those up,” Tambry added, then they split up to pack bags.

When they reconvened the weapons pile was far more impressive than the last one had been. Wendy’s hatchet was there, as well as the baseball bat and the frying pan, but there were also three kitchen knives and two for hunting, a taser, pepper spray, Tambry’s old twirling baton (Nate wasn’t the only one who’d had a sports phase, okay?), and...several wire hangers.

“Okay seriously, which one of you thinks that flimsy wire objects are suitable weapons?” Tambry asked, eyeing the boys suspiciously. She knew it had to be one of them doing this. Nate’s failed attempts to stop laughing gave him away.

Wendy smacked him upside the head. “Hey! What was that for?”

“This is serious, Nate,” Wendy said, “You need to start acting like it.”

“Sorry,” he said. He didn’t seem all that repentant.

They also had a backpack filled with protein bars, peanut butter, trail mix, Ramen Noodles, Easy Mac, three reuseable water bottles and Wendy’s Yeti mug.

“Alright,” Wendy said, picking up her hatchet. “Let’s get everyone armed and then head out, we don’t have long to get to Robbie and Thompson’s.”

Tambry took a hunting knife, the baseball bat, and the pepper spray. “Tambers, that’s not gonna work on those things.”

Tambry rolled her eyes at Nate. “It’s not _for_ them. It’s for all the assholes who will use this mess as an excuse to stop following laws.”

Nate ended up tying a kitchen knife to the end of the twirling baton, Lee took the largest kitchen knife and the frying pan, Thompson grabbed a kitchen knife and the taser, and Robbie took the last hunting knife and the bag of food. Wendy handed Thompson the bag of fireworks, then grabbed her own pack.

“Alright, is that everything?” Wendy asked. Tambry gave their living room one last once over, she’d really miss this place. Hopefully this would eventually blow over and they could come back.

“We’re good to go Wendy,” Nate said, twisting his makeshift spear. Tambry wondered if he knew how ridiculous he looked. “You still set on taking the fire escape?”

Wendy moved towards the window, quietly slipping it open and poking her head out. She turned back, put a finger to her lips, then climbed out the window. She waved them after her, and they all carefully began to climb out the window and down into the alleyway below.

Wendy led them out of the alley, though they maintained their silence without instruction. The sun would definitely be setting soon, but they shouldn’t have an issue getting to Robbie and Thompson’s building unless something went horribly wrong.

And despite that clear invitation for something to go horribly wrong, nothing did. Well, unless you counted the fact that the building’s lobby was filled with zombies. That was pretty bad.

“Now what?” Nate whispered, “There’s no way we’re getting through that lobby.”

“Is there a backdoor?” Wendy whispered.

“Fire doors and maintenance doors,” Robbie whispered back, “Nothing that’ll be open.”

“We could go in through the parking garage?” Thompson suggested.

“As safe as walking into a poorly lit, completely unsecure, underground parking lot sounds…” Robbie trailed off.

“Then what _can_ we do?” Lee asked.

Wendy smirked, and pulled the fireworks bag from Thompson. “We distract them.”

 

**Song for this chapter: Dubstep Music - Zombie Apocalypse**


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I've been really excited to post this chapter, because it marks the beginning of actual plot and the various road trips that were promised in the summary! I hope you guys enjoy it, because I should really be doing my homework and not posting fanfic right now. And thank you to those of you who read/like/comment/follow the blog, you guys are great! And the biggest of thank yous to my awesome Beta Flint, you rock dude!
> 
> PS: I'd like to briefly apologize to Soos fans. I don't have the best grasp of his character and I'm afraid that my writing may have butchered him a bit.

####  NORTHWEST COMPANY SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FACILITY, OREGON

“We’ll be watching you the whole time,” McGucket said, “But we don’t have a way of telling you if something’s going wrong. The floor’s clear for now, but there’s no telling how long it’ll stay that way, so time is of the essence.”

“Please be careful Soos,” Melody said. Soos grinned at her.

“Don’t worry, Lody,” Melody gave him an exasperated smile at the pet name, but Soos could see the fondness in her eyes. “Mr. Pines and I’ve got this. We’ll be back before you know it.”

She hugged him tightly. “You better be.”

“Alright Soos, let’s get going,” Mr. Pines said. He didn’t seem very enthusiastic.

“Remember that you have to make sure the elevator doors are clear before you can close them,” McGucket said, “If there’s anything in the way at any point when the doors are closing the sensors will go off and the doors will open again.”

“We’ll make sure not to block them then,” Stan said, then turned and pressed the elevator call button. They could hear the shudder as the elevator started moving, then it arrived with a loud ding.

“Can’t we shut that off?” Stan asked. McGucket gave a half hearted shrug in response.

“Don’t worry Mr. Pines, we’ll be in and out without anything ever knowing we were there,” Soos said, leading the way into the elevator.

“I hope so,” Stan said, stepping into the elevator and pressing the button for sublevel four.

“Good luck,” Carla said as the doors slid closed. The noise of the elevator was the only sound, and while the silence made Soos hopelessly nervous he didn’t have the guts to do anything more than fidget until he heard the tell tale ding that told them they’d reached their destination. Soos tensed as the doors opened, but the hallway was just as empty as it always was. No shambling scientists or general dead dudes to be found.

He gestured for Stan to follow him, then led the way to the greenhouse. “Okay, so we’ll wanna grab the first two plants in every row, those are the controls. I’m sure you can handle that! I need to get the gardening equipment from the next room over.”

“No problem Soos,” Stan said, moving to grab two tomato plants. “Be careful.”

Soos nodded and moved on to the main lab. It was quieter than usual, he and Melody always played music while they worked, but everything was silent now. His iPod was still docked at the speakers on Melody’s desk, but the battery was long dead now. He wondered if McGucket could do anything helpful with it, then stuck it in his pocket just in case. At the very least the man could probably charge it again. Soos missed singing along to Shakira while gardening. He wasn’t great at singing, but Melody had never once complained about it, she never even seemed annoyed. That was just one of the many reasons Soos loved her. 

Soos grabbed two bags of fertilizer and then made his way back to the elevator. He did his best to hurry, but it was hard to rush through what might be his last visit to one of the most important places in his life. This was the lab where he first met Melody, where they fell in love. He had more happy memories here than at their actual home, that was how much time the two of them had spent down here. And now he was going to lose it all to a bunch of stupid zombie dudes.

Soos gingerly set the fertilizer bags down in the elevator, smiling at the two tomato plants already waiting. He remembered when they’d first started working with tomatoes, how he’d spent the next three days singing Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. That’s when Melody admitted that she had never actually seen the movie, which led to a marathon of vegetable themed murder movies. Soos smiled at the memory, it was one of his favorites. Then he started making his way back to the lab. There was no time for reminiscing right now, he had a job to do.

Soo grabbed everything on Melody’s list, plus any extra things he thought might be useful. After six trips between the lab and the elevator he was fairly certain that he’d gotten everything, so he went back to the greenhouse to check on Mr. Pines.

“How’s it going in here dude?” Stan had gotten most of the plants to the elevator already, the only ones left were the potatoes. Which made sense, as their pots were both the largest and heaviest by far. 

“Just fine, except for these damn spuds,” Stan said, “Why are they so heavy?”

“Dirt and water weight I guess,” Soos shrugged, moving to pick up the second planter. “Ya got that one okay, Mr. Pines?”

“Eh.”

Soos didn’t find that particularly comforting, but he followed Mr. Pines to the door anyway. Mr. Pines shifted his grip on the planter so that he could open the door, and it ended up balancing on his hip.

“I dunno if that’s a good idea Mr. Pines,” Soos asked, and Mr. Pines turned to glare at him.

“It’s fine Soos, I’ve-” the planter slipped out of his grip and crashed to the floor just as Stan had opened the door. The pot shattered on impact, dirt and potatoes flying everywhere. They both froze, neither daring to make a sound.

The silence broke when an unnatural screech sounded from the stairwell. “Shit.”

Soos dropped the second planter, which smashed just as loudly as the first, and okay that may not have been Soos’ best idea but it was too late to worry about that now. They bolted towards the elevator just as the door the stairwell burst open, and then half a dozen of those things were sprinting down the hall after them.

“Why are these dudes so fast?” Soos was breathing heavily, he couldn’t keep up this pace for much longer and he knew it. “Aren’t they like, supposed to be dead? Or something?”

“Just shut up and run!” Stan replied.

 

####  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

“Bill! The zombie apocalypse does not mean that breaking and entering is okay!” Dipper whisper shouted in the most aggressive way he could. It reminded Bill of an angry kitten.

“Oh come on Pine Tree, a little B&E never hurt anybody,” Bill continued fiddling with the lock to the strip mall’s back entrance. “Zombies, on the other hand, have hurt lots of people. Don’t you want to avoid being added to that list?”

“Yes, actually, that’s why I suggested that we  _ leave  _ the city that’s been completely overrun by them!” Dipper hissed.

“And we will,” Bill said, grinning as the lock clicked and the door opened. “But first we need to get some supplies.”

Dipper’s eyes went comically wide. “Bill, that’s looting!”

“Yep,” Bill pushed open the door and slipped inside a dark hallway. He waited for Dipper to follow, but when he realized the kid wasn’t coming on his own Bill went back to the door and grabbed him. “Hey, rule number one of travelling with me, keep up.”

“If travelling with you means committing crimes I’m not sure I really want to,” Dipper grumbled.

Bill frowned. He hadn’t considered what he’d do if Dipper decided to leave him. Sure, he didn’t gain anything tangible from having the kid around, but it was nice to have company. He’d been alone since fleeing Oregon, and as much as he loved himself, a one sided conversation was only entertaining for so long.

“Look, kid, I’m not dragging you in here for shits and giggles. This virus is only going to get worse, and as time goes on food’s gonna get scarce. So we need to stock up now, while we still can. We also need weapons.”

“We have a military truck that is literally  _ filled  _ with weapons,” Dipper said.

“No, we have a handgun with six clips, a sniper rifle with twenty-two shells, three AK-47s with one clip apiece, a military knife, ten grenades, and a box of ammunition for a turret that we don’t have. Other than the knife none of that will be useful for close combat, and guns make enough noise that they’ll draw more zombies to us if we use them. Not to mention they’ll be completely useless once we run out of ammo, and given the sheer number of these things running around that’ll probably be sooner rather than later,” Bill said, “ So we need stuff that won’t stop working and won’t make noise. Agreed?”

Dipper made a face like he’d be sucking on a lemon, then sighed. “Agreed.”

They made their way down the hall until Bill spotted the door to the sporting goods store he’d seen from the road. It hardly took any time at all to pick the lock, and then they were in.

“Grab anything you know how to use that doesn’t make noise,” Bill said, grabbing a shopping cart and making a beeline for the crossbow section. As a child he’d resented his stepfather for dragging him on hunting trips all the time, but he was grateful for it now. Not that he’d ever admit it to the bastard.

He looked through the different models until he found one with a weight that he liked, then grabbed every arrow that could be fired. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he grabbed a second crossbow. Never hurt to be prepared.

“How’s it going Pine Tree?” Bill called across the store. He wasn’t actually sure where the kid had wondered off to, which okay, maybe not his wisest move. The kid was clearly a trouble magnet, he’d picked up Bill after all.

“Fine, I guess?” Dipper answered from across the store, Bill started making his way over to him. “I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to be-”

Dipper was cut off by a crash, followed by an all too familiar growling. “Shit, Dipper, don’t let it bite you!”

Bill broke into a run towards the sounds of fighting, there was a crash as a display was knocked over, and Bill knocked an arrow as he ran through the aisles. 

“Shit shit shit shit,” Dipper was sounding increasingly panicked as more crashes echoed through the store. “Bill! Fuck, there’s another one. Shit!”

“Find a weapon kid!”

“What do you think I’m doing!” Dipper snapped, and there was another crash followed by the sound of flesh ripping. Bill rounded the corner to see that Dipper had shoved one of the zombie’s heads into a metal fan, but was now pinned down by the other. “Bill!”

Bill fired and put an arrow through the thing’s skull, and Dipper shoved the body off of him and scrambled to his feet. “You good? No bites or scratches?”

Dipper started patting himself down, but after a moment he shook his head. “All good here.”

“Good. Any luck finding a close range weapon then? Preferably something that doesn’t run on electricity,” Bill nodded to the now ruined fan. Dipper looked a bit sheepish at the sight.

“Yeah, well,” then he muttered something Bill couldn’t quite catch.

“What was that Pine Tree?” Bill raised an eyebrow as Dipper flushed and started muttering again. “You’re gonna need to speak up a bit.”

“The bat wasn’t working, okay!” Dipper’s blush was the most adorable thing Bill had ever seen. “I just...I couldn’t put enough force into the blows.”

“Don’t worry Pine Tree, you’ll get better,” Bill said, still focused on Dipper’s face. It was just too perfect. Bill would have to see what else he could do to get Dipper to blush in the future, but for now, they still needed weapons. “Come on, I think I saw some hockey sticks in aisle six. When we’re finished here we can head to the grocery store two stores down, and then we’ll hit the highway. Sound good?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Dipper said, picking up a discarded bat and giving it a look of utter betrayal. Bill really hoped the kid was a good shot.

 

####  PORTLAND, OREGON

Wendy dug through the bag of fireworks carefully, grinning when she found the firecrackers. They were absolutely illegal, but Nate and Lee could always be counted on to  break laws. 

“Wendy, are we sure that exploding things is the best way to go about this? I don’t think our super would approve of setting off fireworks indoors,” Thompson said. Wendy rolled her eyes.

“Two things. One, we’re not going to set them off inside, we’re going to use them to draw the zombies out of the lobby. Two, who gives a fuck what your super thinks? This is life or death!” Wendy said, “Robbie, you’ve got the lighter, yeah?”

Robbie nodded and pulled out the lighter. “What exactly is your plan here?”

“I’m going to set off these off down by that car. If we’re lucky, the lobby zombies will hear them and investigate, leaving the way clear for you guys to sneak into the lobby.” Wendy said, “I’m probably not going to be able to follow you guys up, so I’m gonna need you to hurry and grab what you need and then get to Thompson’s van. Okay?”

“No! Not okay!” Tambry said, “We’re not going to leave you alone out here. You said it yourself, we’re stronger together. We can’t risk losing anyone, least of all you. You’re the only one here with any survival knowledge.”

“Yeah, which is why I’m the only one who can pull off this distraction. Firecrackers go off fast, so we’ve only got a little time to set these off and then get the hell out of dodge.”

“What if we don’t use the firecrackers?” Nate asked.

“What else would we use?” Wendy asked, “These are the only ones that are guaranteed to make a lot of noise.”

“Not exactly,” Nate said, reaching into the bag and digging around until he found a fountain.

“Nate, that is the exact opposite of what we need,” Robbie said, “We need noise, not pretty lights.”

Nate rolled his eyes and pried off the bottom of the cone, then passed it to Wendy. Her eyes widened when she saw it’s true contents.Then she grinned. “I should have known you’d have these tucked away somewhere.”

“What? What are they?” Lee asked, leaning forward a bit. “ _ Where _ did you get bottle rockets? I can’t believe you had bottle rockets and didn’t tell me! How long have you been hiding these?”

Nate looked sheepish, “Since I went to my brother’s twenty-first birthday party in Las Vegas.”

“And you didn’t  _ tell  _ me? Dude, that was like a year and a half ago!” Lee said.

Lee looked outraged, and Wendy could sense that the argument was about to escalate. “Okay, enough! We don’t have time for this right now. New plan: I’m going to set one of these up down the street, the fuse should be long enough for me to make it back to you guys before it goes off. I want you all to wait in the alley next to the building, as soon as the lobby’s clear we all go in together. Everyone clear on the plan?”

“What happens if you can’t make it back before the bottle rocket goes off?” Thompson asked.

“You all just get inside when you can, if I can’t make it back in time I’ll figure something out, but I don’t think it’ll be an issue,” Wendy said, “Now let’s get this done, the sooner we get out of this city the better.”

Wendy turned and started making her way down the street, doing her best to stay out of sight. Reaching the end of the street took almost no time at all, and she looked back to make sure the others were in position before jabbing the bottle rocket into a crack in the concrete and lighting the fuse. Then she bolted back to the alley where her friends were waiting.

“How long till it goes off?” Tambry asked.

“Should be any-” Nate was cut off by a piercing whistle, which was quickly followed by the moans of the undead. Wendy motioned everyone down and crept to the edge of the alley, the zombies from the lobby were indeed making their way towards the bottle rocket, but so was every other zombie within hearing distance. This may not have been the most well thought out plan.

“Is it clear?” Robbie whispered. Wendy shook her head, there were still a few zombies trailing out of the building. She waited a full minute after last zombie had shambled out before making her way out of the alley, motioning for the others to follow. They slipped into the now deserted lobby and then ran for the elevator.

“C’mon c’mon c’mon,” Lee was rapidly hitting the call button, and while they all knew that would do nothing they were all just as nervous for the elevator’s arrival. The elevator dinged and the doors slid open just as the whistling stopped. Wendy hoped they hadn’t drawn too much attention to this location with that stunt.

The elevator ride was short and the fifth floor hallway was deserted, but none of them relaxed until they were safe in Robbie and Thompson’s apartment.

“Okay, so gather up everything we might need, more food, water, weapons, clothes, anything that could help us, just be quick. The faster we can get out of here the better,” Wendy said, moving towards the kitchen. 

“Er, Wendy? That might be a bit of a problem,” Tambry was looking out the window, and Wendy was dreading whatever it was her friend was seeing. When she looked down to the street below she felt her stomach drop. That bottle rocket had  _ definitely  _ been a bad idea. The whole street was flooded with zombies, and the sun was about to set.

“Okay. That’s a problem. But it looks like we’ve run out of daylight anyway, so let’s just spend the night here and see if we can wait them out. If they’re still here in the morning we’ll figure it out then,” Wendy said. She really hoped that those things had cleared out by morning.

 

####  I-15 N, SOUTHERN NEVADA

Pacifica did her best to focus on the road, but there really wasn’t much to focus on. I-5 North had been blocked by the military, so they were on I-15 North in the hopes that they could go up to Oregon through Nevada, but the road was pretty much deserted. They’d played some highway games earlier, at Mabel’s insistence, but now it was night and there wasn’t as much to look at.

Generally speaking, going on a road trip with your friends was a good thing. Just you and a few of your favorite people, plus miles and miles of open road and maybe a few terrible playlists to pass the time. But this road trip had something extra. Specifically, a zombie apocalypse. Kind of a fun killer. Or, well, an everything killer. 

Especially if they fail. Because they're trying to do more than just survive, more than just save their families. They're trying to save the world. 

Pacifica sighed. She shouldn’t dwell on that. Look on the bright side, final exams seem way less stressful now than they did last week.

“Hey, Paz, quit moping,” Mabel was grinning at her from the passenger seat, Waddles sleeping soundly in her lap.

“I’m not moping,” Pacifica said, “Northwests don’t mope.”

“That’s a blatant lie and you know it,” Mabel said, “I can’t believe you’re lying to me. My own girlfriend.”

Pacifica rolled her eyes. “You’re being ridiculous again.”

“I’m always ridiculous. It’s part of my charm,” Mabel said, Pacifica snorted.

“My apologies, Miss Pines. How rude of me to forget about your inescapable charms.”

Mabel rolled her eyes. “Alright, alright, enough dodging the subject. What’s on your mind to get you all broody?”

Pacifica sighed and glanced back at Grenda and Candy, they were both sound asleep in the back seat of Mabel’s SUV. “I’m just worried. There’s a lot riding on us right now, you know? If we fuck this up then we’ll have fucked the whole world over.”

“Hey, no,” Mabel said, “Paz you can’t think like that. None of this is your fault, and no matter what happens no one is going to blame you for any of it. You’re trying to do something Paz, and that’s more than most people can say. You’re a hero.”

“Thanks Mabel, but I don’t think I’m quite a hero yet. We’ve at least gotta take on some zombies before we get to be heroes.”

“Good point,” Mabel said, “When do you think we’ll start running into Z’s?”

“I’m not sure, but we are  _ not  _ calling them Z’s. That’s so lame,” Pacifica said, “If we’re gonna give the zombies a nickname we need to be creative about it.”

“Oh yeah? And what would you like to call them?” Mabel asked, “How about we call ‘em walkers?” The last part was said in the worst Southern accent Pacifica had ever heard, and she couldn’t help but laugh.

“Pretty sure that’d be copyright infringement, Rick,” Pacifica said.

“Good point,” Mabel said, thankfully without the accent. “Hmmm, we probably shouldn’t name them without consulting Candy and Grenda anyway.”

“We might want to wait until we actually see them too,” Pacifica said.

“I’ll concede that point,” Mabel said, “How are we on gas?”

“We’ve got about half a tank,” Pacifica answered, “But we might wanna stop for the night. I don’t know about you, but I for one would rather not have to drive through zombie country at night.”

“Well it’s ten miles to Vegas. Think we’ll be able to get a hotel for the night?”

“It’s the city of gambling, I’m sure somebody’s willing to take the risk and stay open through the apocalypse,” Pacifica said.

“Shame that the infection didn’t start there instead of Portland,” Mabel said. 

“Why?” Pacifica asked, trying to look as incredulous as possible without taking her eyes off the road. It was more difficult than it sounded.

“Because what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas baby!” Mabel said, barely keeping a straight face. Pacifica could only groan at her girlfriend’s terrible humor.

 

####  NORTHWEST COMPANY SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FACILITY, OREGON

Carla refused to move from her spot in front of the monitors, constantly flipping between Stan, Soos, and the stairwell. The others were still in the room, but they were more resigned to simply waiting.

Carla couldn’t stand doing nothing. The first time she’d been forced to standby unable to help she was nine years old, and her mother was dying of cancer. That had been when she decided to become a doctor, and when she was older a biochemist, so that she could keep others from feeling the pain of being useless. 

For years that had worked for her. But now it was worse than ever, because she was trapped underground while the entire country suffered, possibly the entire continent if nobody did anything soon. If  _ they  _ didn’t do anything soon.

She sighed and let the monitors rest on Stan for a moment. It looked like he would be done loading up the plants soon, he’d been grabbing two from each row and he was on the second to last one. She flicked back to Soos, he was grabbing seemingly random equipment with no discernible pattern to his movements, but hopefully he’d be done soon too. It was looking like this trip wouldn’t be so dangerous after all.

She switched over the the stairwell, there were a few creatures standing at the landing for sublevel five, but other than that it was all clear. She sighed in relief. Stan and Soos would be on their way back up any minute now, and after that they’d be able to wait as long as it took to be rescued. Hopefully not long.

Her relief turned to fear when the zombies’ heads snapped to attention and they started running up the stairs. Then four more creatures ran out from sublevel five and up the stairs. She started to panic and switched the monitors back to Stan. Soos was with him, but it seemed that Stan had dropped one of the last plants. “Shit!”

“What’s wrong?” Melody was by her side in an instant, Ford and McGucket not far behind her.

Carla switched to the hall as Stan and Soos fled the room, but then the creatures burst out of the stairwell. Carla felt her heart sinking. Even if they got to the elevator there was no way the doors would close in time to keep out those things.

“We have to do something!” Melody was getting hysterical, “We have to help them!”

“We can’t,” Carla’s voice broke, and she felt tears welling in her eyes. Stan had reached the elevator, but when he turned Soos had stopped running. Stan was shouting something, and Soos was shaking his head. 

“No! No, don’t do it,” Melody was openly sobbing now. The first creature reached Soos, and Soos started shouting something at Stan as he pushed the creature back towards the stairs. Carla realized what he was doing and had to turn away as the second creature reached him. She couldn’t watch her friend getting eaten alive.

“Melody, you shouldn’t watch-” Ford started, only to be cut off by Melody shoving him away from her.

“Don’t you dare tell me what I should or shouldn’t do! None of this would be happening if not for you! It’s your fault we’re trapped down here. It’s your fault all these people are dead! It’s your fault that Soos-” her voice broke, but she was too angry to stop now. “We’re all going to die down here Ford. And that’s  _ your  _ fault.”

The room was silent except for Melody’s sobbing. Then the elevator dinged, and Stan stumbled out. He looked horrible, and Carla realized that the doors must not have closed in time to spare him the view of Soos...she couldn’t even think about it.

“Stanley, are you alright?” Ford ran to his brother, but Stan shook him off and walked straight to Melody.

“Melody, I’m so sorry,” he said, “I didn’t know he was going to...I never would have let him-”

“I know Stan,” she said, “It’s not your fault.”

“It is, I dropped the pot! It’s my fault they knew we were there,” Stan said, his own voice wavering. Carla had never seen Stan look so vulnerable, not even when Johnson and Wilford had been killed that first day. “I’m so sorry, it should have been me who stayed behind.”

“No Stan,” Melody said, drawing him into a hug, “You can’t think like that. Soos looked up to you, he would have felt horrible if you’d stayed behind for him. You’re not at fault here.”

Carla suddenly felt as though she was intruding on something, no one had known Soos as well as Stan and Melody. So she tugged on Ford’s sleeve and gestured to the elevator. They had a lot of stuff to unload if they didn’t want Soos’ sacrifice to go to waste.

**Song for this chapter: We’re All Gonna Die by Mieka Pauley**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to briefly apologize to Soos fans. He didn't have the best grasp on survival and I'm afraid that my zombies may have butchered him a bit.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! And I hope you guys enjoy this chapter (and the story as a whole). Thanks to everyone who's reading this, you guys totally rock! And thanks to Flint, for being an awesome beta and helping me plot out some wonderful scenes. Happy reading!

####  PORTLAND, OREGON 

Nate breathed a sigh of relief as the sun rose to show an empty street. It had occurred to him, just after he sent Wendy off with the bottle rocket, that bottle rockets were  _ really fucking loud _ . And that zombies tended to follow noises that were  _ really fucking loud _ . By then it’d been too late to change the plan, but he’d felt pretty bad that they’d gotten trapped for the night, and he’d been worried that they’d still be trapped now.

“Alright! Everybody up! Wakey wakey eggs and bakey!” Nate crowed. Just to see Lee’s I’m-going-to-murder-you-if-you-don’t-actually-have-eggs-and-bacon glare. And while ordinarily Nate would  _ not _ actually have eggs and bacon (since he and Lee preferred to stock their kitchen with cheese puffs, raman, and marshmallow cereal), Robbie and Thompson had a fully stocked kitchen that mostly hadn’t expired yet, including eggs and bacon.

“Nate, shut up,” Tambry said, shuffling out of Robbie’s room in way that was remarkably like the zombies now destroying their fair city.

“Careful Tambers, unnecessary rudeness  _ will  _ result in a loss of bacon privileges,” Nate said, waggling his finger at her in a completely unmenacing way. She gave him a suspicious glare.

“Did you actually make breakfast or are you just being a dick?” Tambry asked. Nate gasped in mock offense.

“ _ Me _ ? Be a dick? Why I never!” Nate said. A pillow hit him square in the face, and he turned to see a very tired Wendy rising from the couch. She sent him a glare that made him sigh and drop the act. “I actually made breakfast, okay? The only thing we’re missing is coffee, cause I couldn’t find the k-cups.”

Robbie entered the living room, looking even more undead than his girlfriend, followed by Thompson. “K-cups are on the top shelf in the cabinet below the coffee maker.”

Wendy shook her head in dismay. “I can’t believe you’re awake enough to be this annoying without coffee.”

“Goddamn fucking morning people,” Lee grumbled.

“You can mock the morning person all you want, but I don’t care as long as we’re getting out of this godforsaken city. Now eat up, we still gotta get to Thompson’s van,” Nate said, ushering his friends into the kitchen.

“Are the zombies gone then?” Thompson asked. Robbie ignored them all and made a beeline for the Keurig.

“As far as I can tell, yeah,” Nate said, “I mean there might be a few stragglers that I can’t see, and  _ fuck  _ knows what the hell is gonna be waiting for us in the parking garage, but yes, there is no longer a sea of the undead clogging up the street.”

“Alright, then let’s make a plan,” Wendy said, she still looked tired, but she was much alert now that she had bacon to munch on. “How do we get to the parking garage?”

“There are three ways,” Thompson said, “There’s the entrance on street level we saw outside, we can take the stairs, or we can take the elevator down.”

“Do you know which is closest to where your car is parked?” Wendy asked.

“Definitely the elevator,” Robbie said, finally breaking his vow of early morning silence. Nate wondered how they’d get him to speak without coffee. Hopefully the logging camp had a Keurig too.

“Alright, we’ll take the elevator down then. Hopefully our luck will hold and there won’t be anything to box us in.”

They finished their breakfast and filled some travel mugs with coffee, then headed out of the apartment. The hallway was just as empty as it had been yesterday, and they reached the elevator in no time. The ride down was quiet, so Nate hummed his own elevator music until Lee punched him in the arm. Nate stuck his tongue out, and though he didn’t start humming again, it was only because they’d finally made it down.

Wendy had her hand on the door close button, and she gave them the signal that Nate was pretty sure meant “don’t make a fucking sound or I will castrate you”, so instead of talking he tightened his grip on his homemade twirling spear and tried to focus on the door.

They all tensed as the door slid open to reveal...nothing. Thank goodness. Wendy led them out of the elevator, then motioned for Thompson to lead the way to his van. They found it quickly and Thompson started unlocking doors. Nate saw it as one of the many reasons why remote locks were a good idea.

They all breathed a sigh of relief when they were safe inside the van, only to grow tense again when it didn’t start right away.

“Thompson? Please tell me your van isn’t broken,” Lee said, nervously looking around for any sign of zombies. Nate didn’t see anything, but there were plenty of dark corners that something could be hiding in. This was so much worse than any jumpscare horror game, Five Nights at Freddie’s eat your heart out.

“It doesn’t always start the first time, but it’ll be fine once we get it going, I promise!” Thompson said, though he was looking increasingly nervous as his van continued to suck. Then came the guttural screech they’d all been dreading, and Nate saw a silhouette appear a few rows over.

“Thompson, we need to get out of here  _ now _ ,” Tambry said. The figure started running towards them, and Nate found it increasingly difficult to keep track of the figure running between the cars. Then something slammed into the door behind him and he  _ shrieked _ . 

He turned to see a woman trying to force her way through the door. There was a knife sticking out of her chest, but she didn’t seem deterred by that. There was also blood covering her mouth and shirt, and Nate somehow got the feeling that it wasn’t hers.

“Thompson!” Wendy said, one hand on her hatchet and the other on her door handle.

“I know, I know!” Thompson said. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, “C’mon girl, start up for me.”

If Nate weren’t so terrified he’d be mocking the hell out of that. As it was though he was a bit distracted by the woman snapping her jaws at his window. It was rather disconcerting.

The first zombie they’d seen slammed into the other side of the van, but at the same time the engine roared to life and Thompson started backing up. 

“Oh thank god,” Nate said, watching the zombies stumble to keep up with the van. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to get eaten alive by one of those things, though he’d probably heard it happen a few times. He decided not to think about it.

“So where are we going?” Thompson asked, “We never really reached a verdict on that.”

“I vote Salem,” Tambry said, “I don’t know about you, but a place run by lumberjacks sounds like a  _ really  _ good idea to me.”

“I second that,” Nate said. He’d met Wendy’s dad once, and while at the time he’d been absolutely terrified he could now think of no one better to protect them. Except maybe Wendy herself.

“Any objections?” Robbie asked. When no one said anything he turned to Wendy, “You know how to get there?”

“Take I-5 Southbound,” Wendy said, “There should be signs once we get to Salem, but I’m pretty sure I remember the way.”

Thompson nodded and started making his way to the highway, and the car fell into an uneasy silence. Nate tried to relax, but when he turned to look out the window it was covered in blood. Part of him hoped that it rained soon, but he wasn’t sure if washing the stain away would help.

This was the world now. Bloody and full of fear. And while he’d kinda known that for awhile now, it was harder to joke around now that he’d had a taste of that fear. It was like someone had stuck a block of ice where his stomach used to be, and Nate didn’t much care for the feeling. 

He hoped they got to Salem soon, he wasn’t made for this kind of fear.

 

####  NORTHWEST COMPANY SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FACILITY, OREGON 

Fiddleford wasn’t good with people. It was a big part of the reason why he worked alone, even though he got plenty of applications for research assistants that would be more than qualified to help him out. But working with others wasn’t something that he was good at, and when it came to reading emotions he was even worse. That was the other reason he prefered to be alone.

Those flaws put together meant that Fiddleford had no idea what to do in the aftermath of Soos’  death. He was sad, but his response to sadness was to compartmentalize it and keep working. In his experience very few people seemed to share that mentality.

Melody was a mess, and she would break down crying at odd times for seemingly no reason. Fiddleford was fairly certain that most of her plants were being watered with tears, though that may not have been the intention. Stan was no better, he hadn’t slept since returning and even after only one night it was showing. Admittedly Fiddleford didn’t have much room to criticize when it came to substituting coffee for sleep, but Stan wasn’t cut out for that lifestyle. Ford and Carla had completely abducted the monitors, and were trying to copy as much of their research as possible from what the cameras could see. He didn’t really know how well that was going for them, but they seemed frustrated, so he was going with not great.

As for himself? He’d been trying to reactivate the old PA system and failing miserably. He was fairly certain it was still installed, but he couldn’t figure out how to switch it back on. Even if he did figure it out, he wasn’t too sure they’d actually find anyone. They’d been here for three weeks and had never once spotted the missing scientists, and while it was true that Lolph and Drundgren had plenty of places to hide and a decent barricade at the door to their main lab, the only real evidence that they were alive came from an absence of their corpses. 

He sighed. He needed to take a break, and come back with fresh eyes. He pulled up his browser to check the forums he’d created in an attempt to contact survivors. During the third week he’d managed to take down the company’s filters, and then he’d hacked into a NSA satellite. He’d activated it just in time to see the country really fall apart. He didn’t really expect to find any survivors, but he’d made websites and blog posts and whatever else he could think of just in case. If nothing else he’d hoped someone in an uninfected area would find them, since his email to the Northwests had been ignored.

His posts and websites remained unseen. He was starting to wonder if he’d set them up wrong. He was an expert at coding and programming, he had PhDs in everything from software engineering to robotics. He knew everything someone could know about computers, except for the culture of the people who used them. Social media was an enigma to him, and he would be the first to admit that he had no idea what to do with it. Soos had helped him make a blog on some weird misspelled website, but he had no idea how to use it.

Thinking of Soos hurt, so he decided to switch to a site he  _ did _ know how to use: the company email server. It was time he sent another email. Maybe the news of Soos’ death would shame the Northwests into responding to him. 

He opened his inbox and his jaw dropped. Sitting at the top, sent at some point last night, was an email from Pacifica Northwest. For the first time in three weeks, he actually remembered what hope felt like.

“Guys, come here!” Fiddleford said, startling Carla and Ford out of their work. “Get Melody and Stan, they’re gonna want to see this.”

Carla left the room to find Stan and Melody, but Ford moved closer. “Did you get the PA system working, Fids?”

“No, not yet,” Fiddleford  said, “But I don’t think it’s meant to get turned back on, so I’m not surprised.”

Carla came back, Stan and Melody following her. Stan looked like hell. “This better be good.”

“It is! We got an email from Pacifica Northwest,” Fiddleford said, “I haven’t opened it yet, I wanted to wait until you were all here.”

“Well? What did she say? Are they sending someone to get us out?” Carla said, and hope seemed to have found its way back into her eyes too. Fiddleford scanned the email, hope warring with uncertainty.

“Not exactly. Apparently Mr. and Mrs. Northwest won’t come let us out until the government has regained control of the state.”

“They’ll never manage to stop this thing without a cure,” Stan said, “Those selfish, money grubbing-”

“Yes, yes, but that’s not all,” Fiddleford interrupted, “Because Pacifica agrees with you, she and her friends are making their way up to get us out themselves. They’d just arrived in Las Vegas when she sent this. She doesn’t know how long it’ll take for them to get here, they’ve already been forced to take a detour because of roads being blocked off, and they haven’t hit an infected area yet but she’s fairly certain that’ll slow them down a bit. But they’re coming.”

“So our survival rests in the hands of a college student?” Ford didn’t sound impressed.

“Four college students, if you want to get technical about it,” Fiddleford said, “Pacifica Northwest, Candy Chiu, Grenda Hansen, and...Mabel Pines.”

Ford and Stan had identical looks of shock. Carla looked concerned. “Is she a relative then?”

“Our great niece,” Stan said, his shock turning to concern. “I haven’t seen her for a few years, but she and her brother used to spend summers in Oregon with us.”

“She can’t come up here,” Ford said, “If something happened to her because she was trying to get to us I’d never forgive myself. Fids, email her back and tell them it’s too dangerous.”

“Don’t you dare!” Melody said, “If they turn back we’ll be stuck down here until we die!”

“And if they get killed we’ll be stuck down here  _ and _ have their deaths on our conscience!” Ford said.

“You mean  _ your _ conscience,” Melody shot back, “The only person who can be held responsible for this mess if you!”

“You think I wanted this? I was trying to  _ help _ humanity, not destroy it!” Ford said.

“The road to Hell is paved with good intentions,” Melody spat. Then she turned to Fiddleford, “Email her back, and tell her everything we know that could be of use to her. And make sure she knows to keep us posted while she can, we can’t do much from down here but now that you’ve got that satellite you might be able to find safer paths for them to take.”

Fiddleford nodded, Melody had gotten progressively scarier the longer they were trapped down here. He suspected that Soos’ death had destroyed any bit of happiness she had left, and he didn’t blame her for that, but incurring her wrath was the last thing he wanted to do. He suspected that his odds of surviving that were lower than if he had to go toe to toe with a zombie unarmed.

He turned back to his computer and started typing up everything they’d learned about the zombies, doing his best to ignore the screaming match Ford and Melody were now engaged in. He really hoped that Pacifica and her friends got here soon. Otherwise he wasn’t so sure that the zombies would get here in time to kill them after all.

 

####  LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 

Mabel had never been to Las Vegas before, but somehow she’d expected more from it. In movies the city was a neon glow and filled with people, with an Elvis impersonator on every street. When they’d arrived last night almost every sign was turned off, it was no longer bustling with tourists, and Mabel had yet to see anyone in a rhinestone suit.

On the one hand, there was no traffic. On the other, finding a hotel that was still open was so difficult that eventually they just found an overnight parking garage, drove to the highest level, and decided to sleep in the car.

It had been kind of cool, because without the regular light pollution they’d been able to see loads more stars than they ever saw in Los Angeles. But when Mabel woke up to the sun rising, pain in her neck, and a twenty pound pig in her lap she decided that the view really hadn’t been worth it. 

She groaned and turned to her friends. Pacifica was wide awake in the driver’s seat, and she was looking at something on her laptop. Grenda was in the way back, snoring away, and Candy, who had commandeered one of the middle seats, was just starting to wake up and looked as though she was planning to murder the sun.

“Whatcha looking at Paz?” Mabel asked, leaning over when Pacifica shifted the laptop so she could see.

“Dr. McGucket responded to the email I sent him last night. He’s given us everything they know about zombies. Oh, and your great uncles are worried about you,” Pacifica said, “He also asked if we could send him updates on our location whenever possible, apparently he’s hacked into an NSA satellite and can help us plan the safest route.”

“That’s illegal,” Candy muttered, “He could go to jail for cyber terrorism for that.”

“I think that consequence falls under the “cross that bridge when we get there” category,” Mabel said, “More importantly, let’s get the lowdown on the zombies!”

Pacifica rolled her eyes at Mabel’s enthusiasm, but Mabel could see the slight smile Pacifica was trying to keep at bay. “Alright, so as stated by KGW, head wounds  _ will  _ result in a dead zombie. But they can also be taken down if there just isn’t enough of them to come back. According to this the bodies that were completely stripped of flesh didn’t come back to life, and McGucket thinks that fire could do the same thing.”

“That’s a bad idea,” Candy said, gaining more clarity now that the conversation had gotten more interesting. “If the fire doesn’t burn quickly enough, and without some kind of serious accelerant it definitely won’t, we’ll be dealing with  _ flaming  _ zombies. Personally I’d like to avoid that.”

“Fair enough,” Pacifica said, “He also said that they’re drawn to loud noises and they tend to congregate together.”

“Oh goody,” Candy said, “They travel in packs.”

“Those who are killed by a bite will rise within two minutes,” Pacifica continued, ignoring Candy’s sarcasm. “And presumably those who survive will also turn, but he doesn’t know how long that will take.”

“The last KGW broadcast I saw said that all those bitten turned, but they didn’t give a concrete time limit either. Apparently it varies from person to person,” Candy said, frowning, “Can you check to see if they’ve posted anything new on their website?”

“Yeah, but it might take a bit. I’m using the wifi of some coffeeshop, but the connection is poor,” Pacifica said, typing rapidly. She bit her lip as they waited, then sighed. “Nothing new.”

They all sighed, and Candy turned around to wake up Grenda. “Should we eat and then start driving again then? We’ve still got a lot of ground to cover.”

“Yeah, that’s proba-” Pacifica was cut off by gunfire. Mabel whipped her head around to look at where the noise had come from, but the Vegas skyline showed no hint of trouble.

The gunshots successfully woke Grenda up, she bolted up so fast that she smacked headfirst into Candy. “Ow!”

“Shit, sorry Candy,” Grenda said, rubbing her forehead. “What the hell was that?”

The shots started up again, and Mabel couldn’t decide if she should be happy about that or not. On the one hand, it meant people were alive. On the other, it meant there was something to shoot  _ at _ .

“We should check that out, right?” Mabel asked. Candy smacked her in the back of the head. “Hey!”

“No! No we should not go check out the mysterious gunshots! Haven’t you ever seen a horror movie? The trick to survival is to never investigate anything!”

“Now that can’t be true,” Mabel said, “There’s gotta be  _ some  _ horror movies where investigation helps the characters.”

“Name  _ one _ ,” Candy said. Mabel bit her lip, she didn’t much care for horror movies and she’d only seen a few of them.

“Errrr, The Shining?”

Pacifica laughed a bit, “Mabel, have you ever  _ seen _ the shining?”

“Well no,” Mabel started, and Pacifica laughed for real.

“Okay, well, the only innocent guy to die on screen did so because he was investigating,” she said, “But back to the matter at hand, horror movies are not a guide for life Candy.”

“They are when your life  _ is _ a horror movie,” Candy said.

“What makes you think our lives are a horror movie now?” Grenda asked, “We could be in a zomedy.”

“I’m sorry, a what?” Pacifica asked.

“A zombie comedy,” Grenda said, shrugging, “It’s a zombie movie that’s funny instead of scary and generally has a happy or hopeful ending. Like Zombieland or Shaun of the Dead.”

“I’m gonna repeat that movies are not a good guide for life,” Pacifica said.

“Well I still think we should just get right back on the highway. Cities are dangerous, no matter how empty they may seem,” Candy said.

“Alright, but we need gas first, right?” Mabel said, “We had a little less than half a tank last night, didn’t we?”

Pacifica started the car and glared at the gas gauge. “Shit, Mabel’s right. First thing we’re gonna need to do is get gas.”

“And the gunshots?” Grenda asked.

“I really think we should check it out if we hear more. Those people could need help. And even if they don’t it’d be nice to know why they were shooting, it might not have been zombies.”

“Considering that Nevada was announced as one of the infected states, I’d say that it’s probably zombies,” Candy said, “Which means we definitely should  _ not _ go towards gunshots.”

“I think that’s all the more reason why we  _ should _ go,” Grenda said, “This is the part of the game where you’ve gotta level grind and figure out how to fight enemies. I’d rather fight my first zombie when there’s only a few of them, not when we’re getting swarmed.”

“As much as it pains me to admit it,” Pacifica said, “Grenda has a point. It’s a very videogame centric point, but somehow still valid. It’d probably be a good idea to get some actual experience with fighting zombies before we get to Oregon.”

“Fine, but we should get gas first,” Candy said, though she was definitely pouting. “If something goes wrong, which it will, I want our getaway car to be ready to go.”

“Deal!” Mabel said, “But maybe breakfast first?”

“That’s a good idea,” Pacifica said, turning the car off. “I need to respond to Dr. McGucket too, he wanted to know if I could send him the plans for the lab’s old PA system.”

“That seems a little random,” Candy said, “Why would he want those?”

“Because they think that there might be people trapped on the other floors, but they won’t know for sure unless they either go to those floors or activate the PA system,” Pacifica said.

“Why can’t they just go and check?” Grenda asked, “If there’s people there it’ll be safe, right?”

Pacifica looked sad. “ _ If _ there’s people, yes, but they aren’t sure. And...apparently they went down to one of the other labs to get food, and someone died.”

“Oh god,” Mabel said, any excitement leaving her. “Did he say who…?”

“Dr. Jesus Ramirez. He sacrificed himself so that Mr. Pines could get away.”

“Oh,” Mabel felt a pang in her heart. It was easy to forget what a zombie apocalypse really meant when they hadn’t seen it in action yet. It meant that people were dead, that families were being torn apart. Every zombie had been a person once, a person with friends and family and dreams about their future. Now they were just dead. “I’m not sure I really feel hungry any more.”

Pacifica gave her a sad look, then turned back to her laptop. “Alright, just give me a sec to send the plans and then we can get gas and be on our way.”

Mabel nodded, tuning out the rest of the conversation as she stared out the window, hugging Waddles tightly. She couldn’t forget how dangerous their situation really was. This wasn’t just a road trip, it was a mission to save the world.

Pacifica started the car again and they made their way back down to the empty streets below. They drove around until they found a gas station, and then very carefully got out of the car to keep watch while Paz pumped gas.

“Do we wanna grab anything from inside?” Candy asked.

“I don’t think it’s open,” Mabel said, frowning at the dark windows of the WaWa.

“We could probably pick the lock,” Candy said.

“No thanks,” Pacifica said, “I’d rather not commit a felony today.”

“Shame, it would have been nice to get some cof-”

Candy was cut off by the return of the gunfire, though it was much closer now than it was earlier. “Dammit.”

“How are we on gas? If we’re going to be of any use to those people then we’ll need a full tank,” Mabel said.

“We’re good,” Pacifica said, putting the nozzle away. “Ready to play heroes?”

“Hells yeah!” Grenda said, lifting her fully bedazzled baseball bat in the air. “Let’s go smash some dead creeps!”

Candy grumbled something about “stupid horror movie girls”, but offered no protests.

“Are we gonna take the car?” Mabel asked, just as more shots rang out.

“I don’t think we’ll need it, those sound pretty close,” Pacifica said, “Why? Do you think we should?”

“Yes! What if we need a quick getaway!” Candy said.

“What if they’re in an alleyway or something though?” Grenda asked, “We could get stuck, or blocked in. I love the Mabelmobile, but it’s not cut out for driving over zombies or tight spaces.” 

“We’ll just have to be careful then,” Mabel said, double checking that Waddles’ harness was on tightly and that his leash was secured. “Ready?”

“Lead the way,” Candy looked resigned.

“Don’t worry so much Candy,” Mabel said, leading the way towards where she thought the shots were coming from. “Everything’ll be fine.”

Candy seemed anything but convinced, but she followed Mabel and Waddles down the street anyway. Mabel knew right away when they’d found the source of the shots, based on the fact that the street was filled with corpses.

“Who’s there?” the voice came from one of the upper windows of a casino, Buried Treasures. Mabel was about to respond, but a second voice beat her two it.

“Deputy, how many times have I got to tell you, zombies can’t speak!”

“I know Sheriff, but I thought it’d be polite to ask. They might not be zombies. I’ve never seen a zombie with a pig before,” the first voice answered.

“That sure is observant of you, Deputy,” the second voice said, “Are you folks zombies?”

“Nope! No zombies here!” Pacifica shouted back, “We’re all perfectly human, please don’t shoot us.”

“Well I’ll be, Sheriff, we got ourselves another group of survivors!”

“If you folks head to the side door we’ll go ahead and let ya in,” the first voice said.

“What do you say guys? Wanna check it out real quick?” Mabel asked, keeping her voice low.

“Not really,” Candy said, “What if they’re cannibals?”

“ _ Why _ would they be  _ cannibals _ ?” Pacifica asked, “Of all the reasons for us to not go in there, why  _ cannibals _ ?”

Candy rolled her eyes, “Because it’s the apocalypse. Food is scarce, people are scared and distrustful. It’s only a matter of time before they start turning on strangers.”

“Okay, first of all, it’s been like a day since Nevada was infected. Nobody’s running out of food anytime soon,” Pacifica said, “Second of all, remember how that guy said  _ another _ group of survivors? That means there are loads of people in there. Maybe one of them has seen our missing convict.”

“Besides, those guys were cops,” Mabel said, “Surely we can trust the Las Vegas Sheriff.”

“Vegas is a city, it doesn’t have a sheriff,” Candy said, “They’d have a chief of police.”

“Well maybe they’re not from Vegas,” Mabel said, “They could be from somewhere else but had to leave because of the zombies.”

“Could be,” Candy said, “Or they could be cannibals.”

“Oh for fuck’s-”

“You folks coming in or what?”

“Coming!” Mabel called back, “Come  _ on  _ guys. We don’t have to stay long, we can just see if they know anything.”

“Fine,” Candy said, “But if they try to eat us I get to say I told you so.”

Mabel rolled her eyes and led the way into the casino, where they were greeted by two police officers. One older black man with a large mustache, and a tall white man who looked quite a bit younger. Mabel grinned smugly at Candy.

“Glad to see you folks! I’m Sheriff Blubs, this is Deputy Durland,” the older man said, “Though we’re from Oregon, so I guess we don’t really have jurisdiction out here.”

“It’s great to meet you, Sheriff!” Mabel said, “We were starting to think Las Vegas had been completely abandoned. I’m Mabel, and this is Pacifica, Candy, and Grenda. Oh! And this adorable little guy is Waddles!” Waddles squealed in introduction.

“Well if y’all follow me I can introduce you to everyone else, we’re just eating breakfast. Deputy, would you be a dear and re-barricade the door?”

“Not a problem Sheriff!” Durland said, giving a quick salute. Blubs turned and led them down the hall.

“What exactly are you eating again?” Candy not so subtly asked. Mabel shot her a glare behind the sheriff’s back.

“Oh, just the stuff the casino had on hand. Waffles, bacon, eggs, biscuits, that sorta thing. Nothing too fancy.”

“Please tell me you’ve got coffee,” Pacifica said. Mabel tried not to snicker at the longing in her girlfriend’s eyes.

Blubs chuckled, “Of course we got coffee!”

Mabel gave up on not laughing when Pacifica gave a victorious fist pump. They rounded a corner and came out in a large ballroom that was filled with tables for gambling. Mabel recognized craps and roulette, but she had no idea what any of the other tables were meant to play. They passed through the room quickly, and Mabel was only slightly distracted by the crystal chandelier hanging above them. Mostly because she wanted to swing on it.

When they came out of the game room they entered a more restaurant like area, it was filled with small tables, and the back wall was dominated by a large buffet table. There were about thirty people scattered around the room, but they all looked up at the arrival of new people. The conversations cut off, and it was obvious that none of them had expected more survivors. The room was silent except for Blubs’ cheery invitation for the girls to help themselves to breakfast.

Pacifica and Candy went straight for the coffee, while Grenda went for the food. Mabel was still deciding who she wanted to follow when an excited, shrill voice came from behind her. “Piggy!”

Mabel turned to see a young girl with pigtails, bouncing in excitement and looking at Waddles like he was Santa Claus. Mabel couldn’t help but smile at her excitement. “This is Waddles. You can pet him if you want to, he’s very nice.”

The girl’s eyes lit up, and she stuck out her hand for Waddles to sniff before she reached around to rub him behind the ears. Waddles squealed in happiness, and the little girl giggled in return.

“Could we pet your piggy too?” Mabel turned to see three other children, and she smiled at them.

“Of course you can! I’m certain that Waddles appreciates the attention,” The children swarmed, all of them circling around Waddles and giggling.

“Mabel! You gotta try these pancakes!” Grenda called, and Mabel turned to see her friend eating some of the fluffiest pancakes she’d ever seen, completely ignoring Candy snickering into her coffee. Pacifica was across the room, talking quietly with Sheriff Blubs. 

Mabel looked down at the kids, still fawning over Waddles. They were too adorable to break up. “I’m gonna get some breakfast boy, I’ll be right back. Be good for the kids, okay?”

Waddles gave an affirmative oink, or at least that was how Mabel chose to interpret it, and then she turned to check out the buffet table. It’d been too long since she’d had good pancakes, and there was no way she was going to this this opportunity.

 

####  NORTHWEST COMPANY SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FACILITY, OREGON

Fiddleford had never before been so grateful for a rebellious teenage girl. Well, technically he’d never before had any sort of opinion on rebellious teenage girls, but he was still very grateful for Pacifica Northwest.

In this morning’s email Pacifica had sent him every set of blueprints for the research facility for the past twenty years. With that information McGucket was able to manually reset the PA system and then turn it on remotely. If only Pacifica had warned him what that would actually  _ do _ .

As soon as he turned on the PA system the speakers erupted with feedback.

“Jesus fuck!” Fiddleford jumped right out of his chair in shock. “Shit shit shit!”

“McGucket! What the hell did you  _ do _ ?” Stan burst into the main lab, looking more tired than Fiddleford had during graduate school.

“Sorry! I turned on the PA system, and I think I figured out why it was shut down,” Fiddleford said, frantically trying to stop the feedback, or at least turn the volume down.

“No shit, Sherlock!” Stan said.

“Fuck you, Watson,”  Fiddleford retorted, “I’m trying to fix it, okay? But it’s an old system.”

“Guys, we need to shut that off, now!” Carla stormed into the lab, looking panicked. “Those things are trying to break through the barricade again.”

“Shit, okay, hang on a second,” Fiddleford said, sighing with relief as he finally brought an end to the feedback. Unfortunately the end of the static didn’t bring silence. Fiddleford could hear the banging of bodies slamming into a door. Though it didn’t sound like it was only coming from the end of the hall.

The three of them looked up to the ceiling together, and Fiddleford felt his heart drop to his stomach.

“Fids? Was that feedback on all three floors?” Carla asked.

“Most likely,” Fiddleford said. There was a crash from above them, like glass breaking, and the sounds of various animals panicking.

Stan moved over to the monitors and quickly switched to the second floor. As expected there were a dozen or so zombies banging on the door of the lab, trying to break through the barricade. But there were also two inside, wrecking the main lab and scaring the animals who were trapped in their cages.

“Oh no,” Stan said, watching in horror as Lolph and Dundgren destroyed their own lab. Or at least, what used to be Lolph and Dundgren.

“What? But they have a barricade? How did they get infected?” Carla asked.

“One of them must have been bitten before they built the barricade,” Fiddleford said, “And I guess that’s why we didn’t ever see them on the cameras, without stimulation those things don’t really move much.”

“Dammit!” Stan said, looking in around in a way that Fiddleford suspected meant that he wanted to hit something.

“What’s wrong now?” Melody said, standing in the doorway. Fiddleford hadn’t even noticed her approaching the room.

“Lolph and Dundgren are dead,” Carla said, moving away from the monitors to sit down. “They’ve  _ been  _ dead, probably this entire time.”

“Ah,” Melody didn’t seem very upset by the news, but Fiddleford figured that at this point she’d already reached her limit for being upset about things. “What do we do now then?”

“Same stuff as before, I guess?” Fiddleford said, “I’ll keep trying to find survivors on the outside, maybe see about getting phone service restored to the infected states. Otherwise nothing’s really changed.”

“I hate this,” Carla said, “There has to be something else we can-”

She was cut off by the sound of breaking glass, followed by panicked squawking. Fiddleford turned back to the monitor to see that Lolph had broken through the dodo’s cage.

“Oh god, turn it off,” Melody said, “Turn it off now!”

Fiddleford jumped to switch the monitor to something else, though the squawking was loud enough that they could still hear it through the floor. Although Fiddleford himself was more put off when the squawking came to an abrupt stop.

“When did life become a living nightmare?” Stan asked, “What did we do to deserve this?”

The question seemed rhetorical to Fiddleford, but Melody answered anyway. “This is the price of trying to play God. There are things science shouldn’t meddle with, human DNA is one of them, and this is why.”

“We weren’t trying to play God, just make humanity better. Stronger, with more immunities,” Carla said.

“Nothing good will ever come of trying to change humanity,” Melody said, then she turned on her heel and stalked out of the room. Carla sighed, then made her own way out, Stan right behind her. Fiddleford returned to his computer, it was the only way he knew he could actually help.

 

####  SALEM, OREGON

Lee wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting from Salem, but a ghost town wasn’t something he saw coming. “Where do you think everyone went?”

“Away from the zombies, if they have any sense,” Nate said matter of factly. Tambry rolled her eyes.

“They’re probably at the logging camp. I doubt that we were the only ones who thought that a fenced in compound run by lumberjacks sounded like a damn good idea,” she said. She was looking through her phone as usual, but Lee was pretty sure she was just playing Candy Crush. What else could she be doing during...he really didn’t want to call it a zombie apocalypse.

“Take the next right,” Wendy said, and Thompson carefully followed her instructions. He put on his turn signal and everything. Ordinarily Lee would mock Thompson for being so cautious on an abandoned road, but his heart wasn’t really in it, and his head was still trying to get around the fact that  _ zombies _ were a real thing now. Apparently.

Part of him knew that they were real. He’d actually seen the damn things, and even he wasn’t so thickheaded as to try and deny their existence after the events of this morning. Every time he closed his eyes he could see the women with a knife sticking out of her chest, he couldn’t seem to stop seeing her. But there was another part of him, made up of logic and desperation, that just couldn’t believe something so ridiculous. Zombies were the lamest of all lame B-Horror movie tropes. They were a joke, they were completely impossible. Or, at least he always  _ thought  _ that they were impossible. And it certainly made no sense for them to be real. Yet here he was, fleeing his home city to go hide with a bunch of lumberjacks, because the zombies apparently hadn’t gotten the memo on their impossibility.

“No, left! Left now!” Wendy said, and Lee jerked forward as the van came to a sudden stop.

“Sorry, guys, I didn’t see the turn,” Thompson said, slowly moving the car again and turning them onto a dirt road that wound into the woods.

“Jesus man, are you trying to give us all whiplash?” Nate grumbled, re-adjusting his seat belt.

“Quit whining, we’re almost there,” Tambry said, though Lee noticed her tugging on her belt too.

“Is anyone else concerned by the complete and utter lack of people? Or is that just me?” Lee asked, “We didn’t even see any zombies on the drive here!”

“Pretty sure that’s a good thing, Lee,” Nate said, “I don’t know if you remember, but zombies are kind of horrifying.”

“I remember, Nate, but if the town’s been abandoned that means there have to be zombies  _ somewhere _ . I just wanna know where they all went,” Lee said. Wendy bit her lip, and Lee knew that she was thinking the same thing.

“We’ll be on our guard,” Wendy said, “Keep your eyes open till we get inside, the zombies may have left due to a lack of food, but there could still be stragglers hiding in the forest.”

Lee kept his eyes on the forest, but he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Though he knew pretty much jack shit about forests, so he wasn’t likely to actually catch anything that was out of place. 

“We’re here,” Wendy said, and then they rolled to a stop in front of a large gate. “The code is 0618.” 

Thompson leaned out the window to type the code in the pinpad, and Lee took in the camp as the gate slowly slid open. The entire compound seemed to be fenced in, he could see several buildings and large trucks, and there were piles of lumber seemingly everywhere. What he couldn’t see though, and he found this more than a little concerning, was people. The camp was just as abandoned as the rest of Salem had been, and Lee could see the tension in the rest of the group as they slowly drove into the camp.

“Maybe everyone’s inside?” Nate suggested.

“Shouldn’t they have come out to greet us though? Or threaten?” Thompson asked, nervously putting the van in park.

“They might have been evacuated,” Lee said, “Like we were supposed to be.”

“Keep your guard up,” Wendy said, pulling out her hatchet before getting out of the van. “Be ready for anything.”

They all followed her out of the van and towards the main building. Lee didn’t know a lot about forests, but he’d watched enough movies to recognize when quiet was  _ too  _ quiet. And it was  _ definitely  _ too quiet in the logging camp.

They were about halfway to the main building when the quiet was shattered by what Lee had dubbed the “You’re totally fucked” scream. He hated that scream.

“Get to the porch,” Wendy said, and they took off as the zombie came into view from the other side of one of the sheds. Oh, and just their luck, she had friends. Nate got to the porch first, and he took the steps two at a time in his hurry to get to the door of the main building. Unfortunately Nate was an idiot, and he pulled open the door without checking what was behind it. A small horde of zombies was behind it. Go figure.

“Shit! That’s not gonna work!” Nate slammed the door shut, but he’d gotten their attention, and the horde began slamming into the door and the windows, trying to break free. By the time Nate had made it down the porch steps again the glass was shattered and they were starting to climb through the windows.

“Shit,” Wendy was scanning the compound, looking for somewhere else to hide. “The old living quarters are on the other side of the saw mill, follow me and stay close.”

She took off in the direction of what Lee assumed was the saw mill, and the rest of the group was hot on her tail. The zombies weren’t far behind though, and despite what Hollywood usually said, they were actually really fucking fast. At least, the uninjured ones were. Which seemed to be most of them.

Lee was, understandably, in his opinion, very preoccupied with the zombies currently chasing after him. So preoccupied, that he didn’t see the legless corpse that had been slowly dragging itself into his path until the thing reached out and grabbed his ankle.

Lee screamed as he went down, and his immediate reaction was to start kicking the thing in the face. Which, considering that the face is where the teeth were, may not have been the wisest place to put his foot. His ankle felt like it had been set on fire when the damn thing bit him. He’d kinda figured that getting eaten alive hurt, the screaming was pretty awful, but he hadn’t quite realized the full extent of the pain. He realized it now.

Lee fought harder, and he managed to flail out of the thing’s grasp. He was on his feet in an instant, and wow, okay, yeah, that still fucking hurt. Thankfully that was when he heard more moaning, and his adrenaline really kicked in. He bolted after the others, they’d already made it around the corner of the mill. But when he came around they were just getting to the door of a very old building, and they waited until he was inside too before slamming the door shut and pushing a dresser against the door.

The old living quarters were dark. The windows had been boarded over, and there was a layer of dust over everything. There were bunk beds and dressers lining the walls, and it reminded Lee of a sleep away camp. He panicked when bodies started slamming into the door and the windows, but the boards held.

“Is everyone alright?” Robbie asked, looking each of them over in turn. “Lee, I saw you fall, you good?”

Lee shifted and hissed when his weight settled on his bad foot. He thought of the bite, but he felt fine otherwise. And it wasn’t like this was a horror movie. “Yeah, I tripped. I think I might have sprained my ankle on the way down, but I’ll be alright.”

And he would be. Lee was certain of it.

**Song for this Chapter: Get Out Alive by Three Days Grace**


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, is it just me or did March go by really quickly? It sure seemed that way with all the projects I had to do this past month. This chapter marks the last of my pre-written material (excluding some bonus blog content that is), but I've got an outline and I'm gonna try really hard to keep up the update schedule for as long as I can. Hopefully my wonderful beta Flint will keep shaming me for procrastinating on it, and hopefully I won't have to write any more essays this semester. Lucky for me, my university ends classes the first week of May, so hopefully I'll have more time to write/make you guys hate me. 
> 
> Anyway I've babbled enough, so enjoy the story! And thank you to everyone who's left kudos, commented, bookmarked, and subscribed to this story. You guys are the only reason that I bother with update schedules, and believe me, those make reading my stories about a million times better.

####  I-90 E, WASHINGTON

“Good morning, Pine Tree!” Bill crowed, and Dipper glared at him from the backseat. He’d been having a wonderful dream, about not being trapped in a car with a sociopath because of the zombie apocalypse. It’d been really great. Or, better than reality. Reality really sucked.

“Fuck you,” Dipper groaned. His neck was killing him. He’d used his hoodie as a pillow. It hadn’t been ideal, but sleeping in a car never was. After Bill had been satisfied with their supplies they’d started making their way out of Seattle, but it hadn’t been easy. I-5 had been blocked off in both directions by the military, though the blockade was all that was left of the National Guard that’d taken over the city three days ago. The only highway that was still open had been I-90 East, so they’d taken it out of the city and over the water, then parked on the side of the road for the night.

“Hmm, I’d love to kid, but we gotta get on the road,” Bill said, and  _ that _ woke Dipper right up.

“That’s not what I-”

“I know what you meant,” Bill said, grinning. Dipper threw his hoodie at him and Bill laughed. “You make it so easy! But really, we should get going. I wanna get as far North as possible.”

“What? We can’t go North,” Dipper said, “I need to get to my sister, and she’ll be South.”

“Look, Dipper, as much as I’d love to help with that lovely little reunion, we’d never find her. If you had a way to contact her, maybe I’d go for it, but I’m not gonna just aimlessly drive South when there’s a perfectly safe destination up North.”

“But I  _ do _ have a way to contact her! I’ve got my-” Dipper cut himself off, patting down his pockets. “Where the hell is my phone?”

Bill shrugged, “Where’d you last use it? Or try to, since there’s no phone service here and even if you find it it won’t work.”

“I know I had it at the...Shit. It must still be at the convention center. But I could have sworn that I had it in my pocket?” Dipper tried to think back, had he forgotten to put it back in his pocket? He hadn’t thought so, but he definitely didn’t have it now.

“Relax kid, I’m sure when we get to Canada you’ll be able to find a phone to call your sister,” Bill said. 

“What? Canada? We can’t go to Canada! I don’t even have my ID, forget a passport. They’ll never let us over the border,” Dipper said, then climbed back into the passenger seat of the truck. “No, we’ve gotta go South.”

“Pine Tree, we’re refugees. They’ll let us in, Canadians are nice like that. Now, if we were trying to cross into Quebec we might have an issue, but if we cross into British Columbia we’ll be fine,” Bill said, “And if they don’t let us in we’ll just cross illegally. The Canadian American border isn’t really guarded, so it shouldn’t be an issue.”

“Won’t they have the military watching it though? Cause of, you know, the zombies?” Dipper asked. Bill laughed.

“Ha! Oh boy, that’s funny kid,” Bill said, not even attempting to get his laughter under control, “Canadian  _ military _ . Pffft. Oh gosh, I needed that.”

Dipper glared at Bill as he continued to laugh. “I don’t see how this is funny.”

“You clearly don’t know much about Canada,” Bill said, his laughter  _ finally _ dying out. “Canada’s a cool place, but I’m pretty sure they don’t actually  _ have _ a military. I guess they’ve got the mounties, but there aren’t enough to like,  _ fortify _ anything. Even they could fortify it, America’s done a pretty good job proving that the military isn’t really effective for stopping these things. Nah, Canada’s best defense is going to be a lack of people to infect.”

“I’m still against going to Canada,” Dipper said.

“Why? Got a secret fear of moose that I don’t know about?” Bill teased, though as he thought about that he grew more serious. “Actually, I can’t mock you for being afraid of moose, they’re kind of horrifying.”

“I’m not afraid of moose, Bill,” Dipper said.

“Really? Because the more I think about it, you probably should be. They’re pretty dangerous.”

“Bill! I am  _ not  _ going to Canada! I need to find Mabel.”

“Well  _ I’m _ not going South, and I’ve got the keys, so…” Bill jingled the keys above his head to emphasis this point.

Dipper couldn’t claim to be proud of what he did next. It was incredibly childish, and probably (definitely) stupid, but Bill had a way of getting under his skin like not even Mabel could. So, before he could really think about it, Dipper lunged across the center console at Bill, trying to make a grab for the keys.

Bill looked surprised for about three seconds, but then he reacted, twisting so that he could keep the keys out of Dipper’s reach and also keep Dipper from pinning him to the seat. Dipper ended up elbowing the horn, and then Bill was yanking him by the collar and manhandling him back into the passenger seat. In the end, Bill  _ still  _ had the keys, and he was also sitting on Dipper’s lap to keep him from moving.

For awhile they just sat there glaring at each other, neither willing to back down or break eye contact. They were startled out of their impromptu staring contest by a body slamming into the car, and Dipper felt his anger leave him when he turned to see a zombie snapping at him through the window.

Bill sighed, and shifted back a few inches, so that Dipper could theoretically push the other man off. “Dipper, I’m not trying to be a dick here, I know you’re worried about your sister and I’m sorry that you don’t know where she is. But even if we drove down to Cal Arts to looks for her, she wouldn’t be there anymore. And without a way of contacting her, we have no way of knowing where she went. She could have been evacuated by the military, she could have gone to Mexico, hell, maybe she went East! Even if we knew where she’d gone I don’t think we’d find her, America’s a pretty massive country. 

“I don’t wanna die, kid. And driving into the heart of zombie territory with no real destination seems like a really good way to die to me, so I’m not going to do it. But… according to the map I grabbed I-90 doesn’t cross another highway until Ellensburg, that’s about an hour and a half from here, from there we can either take US-97 up to US-2 and back to I-5, or we can take I-82 South. If we can’t agree on a direction by the time we get to Ellensburg we’ll split up, but until then, we discuss it like adults. Deal?”

Bill held his hand out, and after thinking it over for a minute, Dipper took it. “Deal. Now can we please go? That lady’s starting to freak me out.”

Bill laughed and climbed off of him. “Sure thing, Pine Tree.”

Bill started the car, and then they were back on the road. “Okay, so Canada. It’s really great. They’ve got maple syrup.”

“Everywhere has maple syrup, Bill,” Dipper said, rolling his eyes. He watched the zombie they’d left behind chase after them until she disappeared from sight. 

“Not like Canada does! You haven’t lived until you’ve had real, fresh, Canadian maple syrup,” Bill said, “Canadians are very serious about their maple products Dipper, that’s why they’ve got a maple leaf on their flag  _ and _ their money. It’s like how America has the best freedom birds.”

Dipper laughed, “Okay, now I  _ know _ that you’re bullshiting me. Have you ever even  _ been  _ to Canada?”

“No, but it’s been a dream of mine for awhile now. Would you really deprive me of my dreams?” Bill asked.

“I don’t know, that depends on how long you’ve been dreaming about this,” Dipper said, putting on an air of faux seriousness. “Is this a childhood dream? Something from college? Your mid life crisis pipe dream?”

Bill scoffed, “First of all, I’m not old enough to have a mid life crisis, fuck you very much. Second of all, it’s an “Oh man, I  _ really _ fucked up when I decided to be born in America, I should run away to Canada,” dream. Like what happens after every presidential election ever, but instead of politicians I’m running from flesh eating monsters.”

“There’s a difference?” Dipper asked.

“Of course there is!” Bill said, “I can shoot the zombies.”

Dipper was too surprised to stop his laughter, but he did his best to cut it off quickly. “You’re horrible.”

“Maybe, but you’re laughing, so I can’t be any worse than you are,” Bill replied.

“Pretty sure you’re just a bad influence,” Dipper said.

“That too.”

 

####  SALEM, OREGON

Thompson had to squint to see his friends in the dark room, and he wondered if the lumberjacks had put a light switch somewhere. He almost started feeling along the wall for one, but then he remembered the zombies trying to break through those walls and decided against it.

“Alright, we’re safe for now, but we’re also trapped,” Robbie said, “So what do we do?”

“We should start by searching the place,” Nate said, “Right?”

“That’s a good idea,” Tambry said, “We need to check for other entrances and make sure the building is actually secure. Check the windows too, I don’t know how old these boards are but if there’re any weak points I want us to find them before the zombies do.”

Nate, Robbie, Lee, and Tambry wandered back to the other rooms, but Wendy had sunk onto one of the beds and hadn’t moved since they’d gotten there.

“Hey, you okay?” Thompson took a seat on the bed across from her, and tried to get a good look at her face.

“Fine,” she said, and Thompson frowned.

“You don’t sound fine,” he said, reaching over and placing a hand on her knee. “You know you can talk to me, right?”

Wendy sighed, but she didn’t move away. “I’m worried, Thompson. My family was here, my little brothers were here. And now the place is completely overrun.”

“Hey, I’m sure they got out alright,” Thompson said, “And I know  _ I  _ didn’t see any redheads in the crowd chasing us, did you?”

“No, but...I’m scared for them Thompson,” she said, “My brothers, they’re just kids.”

“Hey, they’re Corduroy's, aren’t they? They’re strong, like you’re strong. And they’re with your dad, and there’s no way he’d let anything happen to them. If I know your dad, he got them somewhere safe weeks ago.”

Wendy gave him a small smile, and Thompson knew he’d said something right. “Thanks Thompson. You’re a good friend.”

“Hey guys, I found something,” Tambry called from the next room.

“Should we go check it out?” Thompson asked, and Wendy nodded before standing up and leading the way.

Tambry was in a small backroom that resembled an office, bent over something on the desk.

“What’d you find?” Thompson asked, “Please tell me it’s a lantern, because this is getting ridiculous.”

“No, but I think this is better,” Tambry said, moving out of the way to reveal a box with dials on it.

“Wow Tambers, you’re right. A weird ass box is way better than a light source,” Nate said. 

Tambry shot him a glare. “It’s not a box, dumbass, it’s a radio.”

“Doesn’t look much like a radio to me,” Lee said, though he sounded kinda off.

“You sure you’re okay man?” Nate asked.

“Yeah, I’m just tired,” Lee said, “Near death experiences really take it out of you.”

“You sound like you’re getting sick though,” Robbie said.

“I’m not sick! Just, allergies, maybe? It’s probably all this goddamned dust.”

“Moving on!” Tambry said, “This is a Ham Radio, we can use it to call for help and maybe find other survivors. Not a lot of people have them, but it looks like it still works.”

“Well what are we waiting for? Let’s see if we can contact anyone!” Nate said.

“Right, okay,” Tambry said, frowning at the dials.

“You don’t know how to use it, do you?” Wendy said, and Thompson could hear her amusement loud and clear.

“It’s old, okay! Just because I know what it is doesn’t mean I can use it!” Tambry huffed, and Wendy laughed.

“It’s fine, Tambers, I know how to use it,” Wendy said, moving in front of the radio. She fiddled with the dials and it crackled to life in a burst of static. “Hello? Can anyone hear me?”

There was no answer, and Thompson shifted nervously, “How come nobody’s answering?”

“That just means that there’s no one on this channel,” Wendy said, “Usually you keep your radio on one channel and write down the frequencies for other people. We’ll just have to flip through them all and hope we find someone.”

“Right….and exactly how many channels are there?” Nate asked.

“I...I’m not sure,” Wendy said, “But I’ll try the ones I know.”

Wendy flipped through channels for what seemed like ages, never getting a response. Lee broke out into a coughing fit once, but other than that there was nothing but static and Wendy’s ignored greetings. Thompson shifted around as they waited, he had always been pretty patient, but the others were less so.

“Jesus, how long are we going to do this for?” Nate asked, “There’s nobody out there, just sta-”

“Attention survivors, there is hope,” The voice crackled over the radio, and Wendy jumped back from the dial as Nate promptly shut his mouth. “I have created a safe haven from the monsters that now plague our fair country. A place where there are no zombies, where you need not be afraid. We welcome all who come to us with open arms, and we pledge to protect all those who decide to join us in our paradise. Join us, in-”

“Raaaagh!” Lee lunged at Wendy, and while she managed to twist away from him, the radio was not so lucky.

“Lee! What the hell is wrong with you?” Robbie shouted. The radio had erupted into static, but when Lee turned towards Robbie he pushed it right of the table. If it hadn’t been broken before, it sure as hell was now.

Lee growled again, then lunged for Robbie. He hadn’t been expecting it, and they both went down. That’s when Thompson realized what must have happened, and he wasn’t the only one.

Wendy pulled Lee off of Robbie and pushed him back against the wall, then raised her hatchet.

“Wendy! What are you doing? That’s Lee!” Nate said, but Thompson grabbed him before he could get in Wendy’s way.

“Not anymore,” She said, then brought the hatchet down through Lee’s head.

Lee stopped moving, and when Wendy pulled the hatchet back his corpse slid to the floor in a heap. Thompson released Nate, only to grab him again when he realized his grip was the only thing keeping Nate from falling to the ground in shock.

Wendy helped Robbie to his feet, but she looked guilty when she saw Nate’s horrified expression.

“How could you?” Nate whispered, eyes never moving from Lee’s body.

“He’d been bitten Nate,” Wendy said, “If I hadn’t done something he would have killed us all, he was a zombie.”

“He was our friend!” Nate shouted, “We went to kindergarten together!”

Wendy flinched. “I know, Nate. But he was already dead.”

“What if they find a cure? They have to be looking! He had no other injuries, we could have just, tied him up or something!”

“Tied him up with what?” Tambry asked, “And where could we put him that he wouldn’t be able to get to the rest of us? Maybe if he’d  _ told  _ us about the bite we could have done something else, but he  _ lied _ Nate. We’re lucky he didn’t get us all killed!”

“How can you say shit like that?” Nate whirled on Tambry. “How the hell can you say shit like that about our friend?”

“He knew damn well what happens to people who get bitten, how can you consider him our friend when he put us all at risk by hiding it like that?” Tambry shouted back.

Thompson stiffened as he heard groaning coming from outside, but no one else seemed to be listening. “Uh, guys.”

“So a guy makes one mistake, and then suddenly it’s like you never cared about him?”

“This is more than a  _ mistake _ ,” Tambry fired back, “He nearly killed Wendy  _ and  _ Robbie!”

“What, you think he  _ wanted _ to get bitten?” Nate fired back.

“Guys,” Thompson said, slightly louder, but apparently not loud enough to get the group’s attention.

“No, I think he  _ lied _ about it!” Tambry said, “That’s inexcusable!”

“He was in denial!” Nate said, “He’s  _ been  _ in denial since this mess started!”

“Guys!” Thompson shouted.

“What?” Tambry and Nate whirled on him together, and Thompson flinched back at their anger.

“Listen,” Thompson said, and finally,  _ finally _ , the group seemed to realize that shouting during a zombie apocalypse was a bad idea.

The walls creaked as the zombies outside pushed against them, and the moans seemed louder now that the shouting had stopped.

“Shit,” Wendy said, eyeing the boards on the window wearily.

“They can’t get in, right?” Nate not so subtly moved away from the window.

“I...I don’t know,” Tambry said, “I was so excited about the radio that I forgot to check the boards.”

“Fuck,” Robbie said, all of them watching in horror as the boards creaked again.

“We need to leave,” Wendy said, “If they’re all over here, the door should be clear. If we hurry, we might be able to make it back to the van.”

“And then what?” Nate asked, “We still won’t have anywhere to go.”

“Anywhere is better than here though, right?” Thompson asked, “Maybe we can find that safe haven.”

“You mean the one we don’t know the location of?” Tambry muttered, and Thompson shot her a dark look.

“Look, it doesn’t matter where we go, but we can’t stay here,” Robbie said, “I’d rather drive around aimlessly than be eaten alive.”

“Alright, Tambry, Nate, Robbie, stay here and keep talking. We don’t want the zombies wandering off. Thompson and I will make sure the coast is clear and move the dresser. Then we all make a break for the van. Agreed?”

The others nodded, and Thompson followed Wendy back out to the main room. He really hoped this plan worked.

####  ELLENSBURG, WASHINGTON

They hadn’t come to an agreement.

Bill had tried every method of persuasion he knew, but Dipper was still set on finding his sister. If it wasn’t so stupid Bill would have called that kind of sibling devotion admirable. As it was, Bill was leaning more towards “unhealthy levels of codependency,” and he didn’t hesitate to tell Dipper as much. Dipper had laughed and said something about needing flannel and a Chevy Impala, but refused to explain the reference when it became clear that Bill didn’t understand.

But now they were exiting the highway and entering Ellensburg, and Bill had been forced to admit defeat. He hoped he could find someone else to travel with, but he wasn’t counting on anyone being as interesting as Dipper was. The kid was one of a kind. 

“You sure you don’t want to go to Canada kid?” Bill asked, “They’ve got snow.”

Dipper gave him an exasperated smile. “I’m sure Bill. Maybe when I find Mabel we can— look out!”

Bill turned back to the road and slammed on the brakes, then swerved in an attempt to avoid hitting the RV that was parked across the road. They spun out and slammed into a tree, and for a moment all that registered was a sharp pain in his head.

“Fuck,” Bill said. He turned towards Dipper, who’d slammed his head into the dashboard. “Pine Tree?”

There was no response, but when Bill reached over he found a pulse. Just knocked out then. Hopefully.

“Step out of the vehicle and put your hands up,” Bill turned to the window and was met with the barrel of a shotgun. Bill slowly raised his hands.

“My friend’s unconscious,” he said, nodding his head toward Dipper, “Just give me a sec to grab him and we’ll be-”

“Shut up and get out of the car,” the man said, “Cooperate and we’ll leave you and your friend alive.”

Bill got out of the car, keeping his eyes on the people now surrounding their car. The one with the shotgun was the oldest, though he didn’t need a gun to look scary. The burly redhead was big enough that he could probably intimidate people just by breathing.

There was also a woman, and while she wasn’t as muscular as Mr. Beefcake she definitely wouldn’t have an issue smashing Bill’s head in with the axe she was carrying. There were two other guys, also armed with axes, who were watching the road. Presumably keeping watch for zombies.

Bill looked towards the RV, and he was fairly certain he could see three kids watching through the windows. Now that was just bad parenting.

He pulled his attention back to the adults when the woman started pulling Dipper out of the car. “Please be careful with him! People who are willing to put up with me are few and far between.”

“Didn’t I tell you to shut up?” Mr. Beefcake said, pointing the shotgun in Bill’s face again. Bill was getting the distinct vibe of a guy who’d never threatened to shoot a person before, which meant that either Bill was perfectly safe or completely screwed. It was a bit too early to tell.

The woman carried Dipper over to Bill, then dropped the kid like a sack of potatoes. Bill winced in sympathy, but Dipper remained out cold despite his rough treatment. That was probably for the best though.

The woman started digging through the car, and Bill frowned as she started pulling things out of it. Food, guns, ammo, the grenades, all of it was being piled out of Bill’s reach.

“Can any of you boys fire a crossbow?” she asked. Guard 1 shook his head, and Guard 2 laughed. “I’ll take that as a no. That’s it.”

She walked over to Mr. Beefcake, and they had a whispered conversation that Bill couldn’t hear. Bill looked at the pile again, it looked like they were taking all the food and most of their weapons, but the crossbows were being left behind and it looked like she hadn’t found the handgun or the knife.

Mr. Beefcake handed the woman the shotgun, then started moving everything into the RV. When he finished they all returned to the RV, then drove away.

Bill frowned at the truck, it was absolutely totaled, and the motor was smoking. Bill’s knowledge of fixing cars extended to changing a tire and performing a jump start, but even if he had known more he doubted he could get it running again. He looked down at the unconscious form next to him.

“Pine Tree? I really need you to wake up kid,” he said, gently shaking Dipper’s shoulder. There was no response. Bill looked up at the sun, it was probably about noon. He look down the road, he couldn’t see Ellensburg, but he knew they were close. 

Bill weighed his options. He could try to carry Dipper to Ellensburg and they could find shelter there, but if they got attacked or if they didn’t make it before sunset he’d probably be screwed. He could always leave Dipper here, but no, even Bill wasn’t so much of a dick as to leave someone alone and unconscious on the side of the road during a zombie apocalypse. Which left him with staying put until Dipper woke up, which wasn’t ideal, but the truck was intact enough that it would probably keep them safe as long as they didn’t get completely swarmed. And honestly, if they got completely swarmed they’d probably be fucked no matter what he did.

“Alright kid, let’s get you back in the car,” Bill said, carefully lifting Dipper up and making his way back to the truck. “Stupid goddamn robbers.”

Once he got Dipper situated in the back seat, Bill started securing the doors. The engine was wrapped around the tree and the windshield was shattered, but it was still intact and Bill had no issues shutting the doors.

Bill grabbed his crossbow and loaded it, then settled in to wait. He really hoped Dipper woke up soon. The whole point of having the kid around was to keep himself distracted, to make sure he was never left alone with his thoughts. He knew he’d never forget the shit that went down in Oregon, but with Dipper to talk to he at least didn’t have to focus on it. But with no one to talk to he couldn’t seem to get the memories out of his head.

A woman screaming, people running, those monsters tearing apart everyone they got their hands on. That look of betrayal when Bill had…

He needed to stop thinking about it. About  _ her _ . He couldn’t relive that nightmare. He was safe. He was going to Canada. He never had to go back to that place again.

Bill scanned the empty highway, then the treeline on their otherside. “Please wake up soon kid.”

####  NORTHWEST COMPANY SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FACILITY, OREGON

Ford had taken to pacing while they worked. He knew it drove Carla crazy, even if she was too kind to say anything, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop and stand still. It was pointless, but pacing made him feel like he was doing  _ something.  _ And it was better to do something than nothing, no matter how pointless that something may be.

“This is never going to work,” Ford said, “There’s just too many missing pieces right now, and we’ll never get them all from these cameras. If we could just get back to the lab for a few minutes, we could get more information than we’d get from  _ hours  _ looking at these monitors.”

“I know, Ford, but there’s nothing else we can do right now,” Carla said, “Even if we had a way to defend ourselves, there are just too many of those things down there. I don’t think the floor’s been clear once the entire time we’ve been here. It’s just too risky.”

“We live in a world that’s full of risks, that’s how it’s always been. But risk taking is how progress is made! We can’t hope to find a cure if we just sit here cowering behind a locked door, Carla,” Ford said, “I know the odds are bad-”

“They’re a bit worse than  _ bad _ , Ford, “ Carla cut him off, “We have no weapons, no openings, no armor, no fighting experience of any kind; we’d dead before we could make it out of the elevator.”

“But we can’t just  _ sit  _ here doing  _ nothing _ !”

“Ford, I understand how you feel. I hate this too. But there’s a difference between taking a risk and doing something that’s just plain stupid. You can’t really think that we have a chance of coming back alive  if we go down there as we are.”

Ford sighed, dropping back into his chair in defeat. Carla was right, just like she always was. He should probably listen to her, but he couldn’t help but think that there had to be a way he could pull it off. A ventilation shaft he could slip into,  an invention he could repurpose, some way to lure the zombies away. “You’re right, it’d be stupid to just take the elevator down and hope for the best, but if we just came up with the right plan, we could pull it off. I know we could, we’ve got some of the finest minds in North America down here.”

Carla sighed, but Ford could already tell that she was thinking about it. Once Carla got a problem in her head she’d never get it out until she came up with a solution, it was one of the things she and Ford had in common and the reason Ford had hired her on to help him full time, instead of the temporary positions most of his lab assistants had held. “You might be right. Maybe. I won’t allow for any unnecessary risks, Ford, and there are a million details we’ll have to think about, but...I know Miss Northwest sent Fiddleford the blueprints for the facility, we could try looking at those?”

Ford grinned for the first time in what seemed like forever. “That sounds like as good a place as any to start.”

Carla gave him a stern look. “But even if we find a safe way down, there’re are other things that we’ll need to consider. Like weapons, or armor, or-”

“I know, Carla. I’ve been thinking about that too. I think I could build a weapon from some of Fiddleford’s experiments, he’s got so many different things lying around.”

“Don’t even think about it!” Fiddleford said, walking into the room with a fresh mug of coffee. “My experiments are complex and many are time sensitive, I won’t have you dismantling them so that you can go get yourself killed.”

“What? Fiddleford, the world needs our help. If we’re going to find a cure, we’ll need our research,” Ford said.

“And you’ll get it,” Fiddleford replied, “ _ After _ Miss Northwest and her friends end the quarantine and somebody sends a properly armed squad of Marines or Special Forces or whatever other scary ass teams the government has to clear the building and retrieve it for you. But until then, we’re gonna sit tight and stay alive. If you get yourself killed you’ll be no good to anyone.”

“We were only brainstorming, Fids. We never would have tried to go down there unless we had 100% safe way to do it. Finding weapons is just one item on a long list of things we’d need to figure out,” Carla said. Ford knew she was just trying to placate Fiddleford, but it felt like she was dismissing the idea as a pipedream. And maybe it was, but the same thing was once thought about flight, and now airplanes were one of the world’s most common ways to travel.

“You really think we could find a 100% safe way to go down to a floor that’s crawling with zombies 24/7?” Fiddleford’s voice was dripping with sarcasm, and Carla gave him a disapproving look.

“We’ll never know for sure unless we look into it,” Carla said, “And at this point we’ve salvaged everything we can form these monitors, it’s not like we’ve got anything better to do. Unless you need help with anything?”

“Do you know how to reactivate cell phone towers remotely?” 

“No?”

“Then you can’t do anything to help me.”

“Do  _ you _ know how to reactivate cell phone towers remotely?” Ford asked. Fiddleford made a noncommittal gesture that did nothing to inspire confidence in his abilities.

“It’s mostly been trial and error,” Fiddleford said, “Lots and lots of error.”

“What are you having trouble with?” Carla asked, “Shouldn’t it just be like flipping a switch?”

“No, nothing could ever be so simple,” Fiddleford said, “Everything must be as complicated as humanly possible so that it’ll be easier to saw off your own arm than to tamper with cell phone coverage. I blame teenagers, if they weren’t so insistent on making it a Federal fucking Issue every time they don’t have service I wouldn’t have this problem right now.”

“Are you sure it’s the fault of teens? I feel like the phone companies are more at fault here,” Carla said, and Ford could see her trying to hide a smile.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m blaming them too,” Fiddleford said, “Paranoid fucks can’t risk people getting free phone service by piggybacking into their tower like it’s early cabel.”

“What do you mean?” Carla asked, confusion overtaking her amusement.

“I mean that the security on these damn towers is like a virtual Fort Knox. I’ll be be able to get through eventually, but it’s gonna take forever and be a general pain in the ass.”

“So there’s no shortcuts or weak points you can get through?” Ford asked.

“Nope. And these big companies have some fabulous security to keep me at bay,” Fiddleford said, “I don’t know why the service is still off to begin with. It should have been turned back on the moment the government stopped lying about what was happening.”

“They were probably trying to avoid a panic,” Ford said, “A lot of people were being evacuated into survivor camps, right? I’ll bet the military didn’t want them knowing what was going on, they never would have been able to keep order otherwise.”

“What about the small companies?” Carla said.

“The what?”

“For the phones,” Carla clarified, “I know I’ve seen commercials for smaller companies that use the towers of the big ones. Could you get through one of those?”

Fiddleford looked thoughtful for a moment, then his face split into a grin. “That just might work. Carla, you’re a genius!”

“Of course she is, that’s why I hired her,” Ford said, watching with interest as Fiddleford rapidly typed away. Lines of code flashed across the screen, the numbers meant nothing to him but Fiddleford clearly understood them. There was a popup, and Fiddleford whooped in victory.

“I’m in! I can turn the towers back on!” 

“Well don’t just sit here celebrating, do it!” Ford said, grinning despite himself.

“Right,” Fiddleford went back to typing, then a loading bar took over the screen. “Alright, so the computer systems are going to reboot, but as soon as they’re done the cell towers will come back online. They won’t stay up forever though, when they run out of power that’ll be it.”

“How long do you think they’ll have power for?” Carla asked.

“I have no idea,” Fiddleford said, “But hopefully long enough for the survivors to call for help.”

Ford frowned, “Is there even anyone left to help them?”

“I don’t know. But I know how we can find out,” Fiddleford said.

####  KGW NEWS STATION, OREGON

Shandra Jimenez had spent her entire career hoping for bad news. It was common knowledge in the news industry that nothing sold better. Hero stories were nice, but nothing got ratings like scandals or tragedies did. But she was now learning that there were more important things than ratings. And right now? She’d do just about anything for some happy fluff piece to report.

The world seemed to have other plans.

“Has it really spread so far?” she asked, disbelieving of the map her only remaining intern was updating with bright red pins.

“Yes, Ma’am. According to the email from Homeland Security there are now confirmed cases of zombies in Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, both the Dakotas,  West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut,” she responded, tucking her dark red hair behind her ear.

“Jesus Christ,” James breathed out, eyeing their map of the country with despair. Shandra had never known her co-host to be anything other than optimistic, but his normal cheer had only lasted a few days after they decided to start investigating what was really going on in Portland. “How can it be spreading so quickly?”

“People are moving around, running away,” Shandra said, “The zombies are following their food source. And when you’ve got a big group together, it only takes one person hiding a bite to infect everyone.”

“I don’t think that all of these places are completely overrun, either,” the intern said. Shandra felt a slight pang of guilt for never having learned the girl’s name, but at this point it seemed like it’d be more rude to ask than to just never use it. “There’s just been confirmed cases within the state lines. Plus, all the national networks are still broadcasting, and since they’re based in New York City the city can’t have fallen yet, otherwise they’d stop. Or at least  _ move _ .”

“I hope you’re right,” James said.

“I don’t suppose we’ve gotten any sort of  _ good  _ news today?” Shandra asked, turning away from the map and looking out the window at the building’s parking lot. It was still filled with cars, and she could almost imagine that the rest of her coworkers were alive and well, going about their business in other parts of the station. Then Maurice shambled into view, blood covering his lucky tie, which he said always made his forecasts accurate. She sighed and turned back to James and the intern.

“Not when I last checked, but something new might have come in since then,” the teen said, crossing the room to where her laptop sat on the ground. Shandra knew she was being humored, and that even if they’d gotten a new message, it was highly unlikely to be good news. But then the teen gasped, and she jumped up from the floor and started digging through her backpack.

“What are you doing?” Shandra asked, but the intern ignored her, instead pulling out her cellphone with a triumphant squeal. She fiddled with it for a moment, and then the office phone started ringing. James picked it up, and he looked at their intern in shock as the teen’s face broke into a grin.

“Ma’am, get ready to broadcast. We’ve finally got some good news.”

Shandra grinned at her as James hung up, and then moved to read the message they’d gotten about the phones being back up. The intern dashed into the broadcasting room, a grin still firmly pasted across her face.

Shandra scanned the email, it was from some computer genius who claimed to have hacked into the towers and turned them back on. According to him they’d stay up as long as they had power, but he had no idea what the status of the local power plants were, as he himself was working with a generator. 

“James, have we heard from any local power companies?” Shandra asked, “Because their ability to keep operating is relevant to how long the phones will be working.”

“Uh, yeah, we got an email from three of them just after the government admitted that we were telling the truth. They should all be pinned,” he said, frowning, “I think the plan was to shut down most of the residential grids, as determined by the government.”

Shandra pulled up the emails, nodding along as she read it aloud, “The grids for most suburban areas will be shut off, but the government shelters and major cities will be keeping power. They shut down most of the plants on the West coast, but the ones that are still running are being guarded by a military detail. If the virus keeps spreading they’ll have to shut more plants down though; they only have so many soldiers to spare for guard duty, and they’ll want to keep plants open all across the country if they can.”

“Do we have a list of places that still have power?” James asked.

“No, and even if we did, it’s probably changed. With how fast this thing is spreading they’ll be taking preemptive measures to secure plants all across the country,” Shandra said, “But maybe with the phone lines back up we’ll start getting calls. I’m gonna start writing a video broadcast, I want you to do one on the radio, and we’ll have-”

“Raaaarghhhhh!”

“Fuck!”

There was a crash from the broadcasting room, and Shandra’s face paled. James dashed into the room, and Shandra barely remembered to be gentle with the laptop in her rush to get up and follow him.

“Lauren!” James shouted, “Shit, get off of her!”

Shandra burst into the broadcasting room, and her stomach dropped as she took in the scene. The intern, Lauren, that was her name, was struggling with another (now zombified) intern. James was trying to help, but he never was much good in these sorts of situations. There was glass littering the floor, leading to the shattered window that separated the set from the control booth. That explained the crash at least.

“Don’t just stand there, help me!” Lauren shouted, jolting Shandra out of her shock. She needed a weapon, and she needed one now. She scanned the room, surely they had something helpful in here somewhere?  _ There. _

Shandra dashed across the room, they had a fire extinguisher that would be perfect for beating a zombie’s head in. Or it would be, if she could get it off the wall. The growling was  _ not _ helping her concentration.

“Shandra!”

I know, James! This damn thing is stuck!”

“No, you need to turn-”

The fire extinguisher popped of the wall just as something grabbed her arm. She spun around to see Margie, or what was left of her anyway. The woman’s botox smile was still holding firm, but her teeth were bloody as they snapped at the news anchor. It was probably the most horrifying thing she’d ever seen, which was really saying something considering she’d watched her boss get disemboweled just last week.

Shandra swung the fire extinguisher up and into Margie’s head, and the woman released Shandra’s arm as she staggered backwards. Shandra slammed the extinguisher down on her back, and Margie hit the floor. Shandra brought her make-shift club down on Margie’s head, and the zombie stopped moving.

An ear splitting scream filled the air, and Shandra looked up to see the zombie intern tearing into Lauren’s neck.  The zombie pulled back and blood went  _ everywhere _ , dark enough to stain the zombie’s red dress as it dribbled from her mouth. Lauren’s scream was cut off by coughing, and that snapped Shandra into action. She ran forward and smashed the fire extinguisher into the zombies head, knocking her off of Lauren, then slammed it down on the zombie again and again until there was nothing that looked even remotely like a human head left behind.

When Shandra turned back, Lauren was choking on her own blood, her hands desperately gripping her neck. Shandra turned her head, unable to watch the light leave the poor girl’s eyes. Silence filled the room, no one daring to move. Then there was rustling, and Shandra turned to see Lauren’s now zombified corpse trying to raise from the ground. 

“Shit,” James whispered. 

Shandra couldn’t look at him as she brought the fire extinguisher down on Lauren’s head. “I’m sorry Lauren.” The corpse stopped moving, and Shandra took a deep breathe before turning to the control booth window. “Come on. We need to secure the door to the control booth before more of those things wander in.” 

James said nothing, but he rose to follow her. Any cheer they’d had earlier over the phone lines coming back was long gone as they worked to build a new barricade together. 

  
  


**Song for this Chapter: Senor (Tales of Yankee Power) by Dierks Bentley [feat. Punch Brothers & Chris Thile]**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. I really hope nobody is too upset about Lauren. I promise I wasn't planning to kill her originally, but then Flint gave me the idea to do it, and I just couldn't resist, so blame him for inspiring me! Or blame me for writing it anyway. Whatever floats your boat.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY!
> 
> This took forever, because I suck (and there are some legit excuses in the end notes if you want them, but it's okay to just say that I suck).
> 
> I'm working on some extras for the Zombageddon blog on tumblr, some of them I might even get put up today, so make sure you keep an eye on that because there's some cool stuff that's gonna foreshadow stuff in later chapters, and maybe even elaborate on some certain highway robbers from past chapters. ;)
> 
> You'll also notice that it's not the last day of the month, and there're two reasons for that. One: Y'all have waited long enough, and I wanted to get this chapter out the day I finished it. Two: I'll actually be on a cruise during the actual last day of the month, so I wouldn't be able to update then anyway.
> 
> I know I haven't been doing a good job keeping to the schedule, but I'm hoping that once school starts up I'll be able to keep to it again (Can't be sure if I'll have Chapter 8 ready for the end of August, but by September I'm confident that our regular update schedule will be resumed.) 
> 
> tl;dr: I'm sorry this is so late, I suck, but here's 25 pages of story and I'll be posting extras on the blog asap, so please forgive me.
> 
> And thank you to everyone who's stuck with me through this unintended hiatus! And double thank you to everyone who messaged me on the blog to check it, you guys rock, and everyone who's left me comments is a saint. Also: Triple thanks to Flint, who's amazingly patient with me, and is a major part of keeping me going on this fic.

####  SALEM, OREGON

Tambry couldn’t stop pacing. The sounds of the dead trying to force their way into the room was unnerving, but it was the way Nate was glaring at her that really had her on edge. His expression was angry, but his eyes showed betrayal, and the look had Tambry feeling guilty. Which was stupid, because she had nothing to feel guilty about; Lee lied about getting bit, and he almost got Robbie and Wendy killed. She  _ was  _ sad to have lost him, Lee had been one of her best friends for years, but she was angry too. At Nate for being so obtuse about this, and at Lee for lying, and the world, for throwing fucking zombies at them and taking away one of the few people she actually cared about.

“Okay, we need to be talking guys, not glaring at each other,” Robbie said, “When we get back to the car you can be as passive aggressive as you want, but right now we have jobs to do.”

“One of our best friends is lying dead not five feet away,” Nate said, “And do any of you care? No. Some friends you are.”

“I  _ do  _ care Nate,” Robbie said, “But I also don’t want to die, so I’m waiting until we’re somewhere safe before I start thinking about him. Lee meant a lot to all of us, okay? But we can’t mourn him until doing so won’t kill us.”

Nate sighed, then nodded. Tambry felt another pang in her heart. Robbie was always so much better with words than she was. Part of it was probably because Tambry had such a hard time expressing her emotions verbally, but with all the songwriting he did Robbie had gotten really good at making people listen. If he liked people more he would have made one hell of a public speaker.

“Alright, do we have any ideas for how to figure out where that safe haven is?” Robbie asked.

“How do we even know it’s actually safe?” Nate asked, “That message was probably a recording, I can’t imagine someone would sit around saying the same thing all day. We were so sure that this camp would be safe, but it turned out to be completely overrun. What makes you think this radio place will be any different?”

“It’s already different,” Tambry said, “We assumed that the logging camp would be safe, but we had no evidence to support that idea. But this place is being broadcast as a safe haven, and I don’t think they’d do that if they weren’t certain that they had a secured location.”

“Things change quickly though,” Nate said, “Especially now. The initial outbreak was less than a month ago, yet most of the west coast has been abandoned and the east coast isn’t much better. Maybe they were safe when they recorded that message, and maybe they’re safe now, but how do we know they’ll be safe when we get there?”

“We’ll be cautious,” Robbie said, “If we can’t see signs of life from the outside we won’t go in, simple as that.”

“Fine, but we still don’t know where it is,” Nate said.

“Right. So how do we find it?” Robbie asked, “Is there a way to fix the radio? Could we catch the signal with the radio in the van? Or a cell phone?”

“To my knowledge no, but I don’t really know all that much about radio waves,” Tambry said, “Personally, I’m more concerned about what we should do in the meantime.”

“What do you mean?” Nate asked.

“I mean, where do we go when we get out of here?” Tambry clarified, “I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not just drive around aimlessly for an unknown amount of time.”

“We could camp out in one of the houses back in town,” Nate suggested, “The whole place was abandoned, right?”

“At first glance, yeah,” Tambry said, “But this place looked pretty empty too when we first arrived.”

“You’re right, but a house isn’t likely to be so overrun,” Robbie said, “If we can find an easily defendable location we should stay there, at least for tonight. Those things seem to be more active at night, so when the sun goes down I want to be somewhere with solid walls.”

“Agreed,” Nate said, “I think I saw a house with a wrought iron fence-”

Nate was cut off by the sound of glass shattering, and Tambry whirled around towards the remains of a boarded window to her right. The boards were still holding, at least for now, but the glass had given way and the hands of the dead were now reaching towards them in the space between the wood. Tambry took a not so subtle step away from the window.

“Fuck, I hate this plan. I hate this plan so much,” Nate said, voice rising in panic, “Why did  _ we _ get stuck playing bait? This is the worst plan. What if they get through?”

“They’re not going to get through,” Robbie said. He probably sounded confident to Nate, but Tambry could see the uncertainty in his stance. She really wished she’d tested those stupid boards while she’d had the chance. “What were you saying about a house with a fence?”

“Er, just that. On the way in I saw a house that was completely fenced in. I don’t know if we could get the gate open without breaking it though, or if the place is even actually secure,” Nate said, slowly regaining his composure, “But it had a fence.”

“Do you think you could find it again?” Tambry asked.

“Maybe? I think if we just go back the way we came we’ll see it,” Nate said, “But if these things follow us out of here we might have a problem getting the gate open.”

“Shit, I didn’t even think about that,” Tambry said, “If they follow us the gate won’t close on them, and we’ll have a horde on our tail until we can get far enough away that they completely forget about us.”

“Any idea how far away that is?” Robbie asked, “You’ve been trolling those survivor blogs, right?”

“Yeah, but the only people who ever post regularly are the KGW folks, and they’re trapped in the station, so they haven’t had much chance to test things,” Tambry said, “There is another guy who posts occasionally, but he never got back to me when I messaged him. Honestly, I’m not sure if he knows how, he didn’t seem to understand how tumblr works.”

“So you have no idea,” Nate said, eying the remaining windows as if he expected them to break at any moment.

“Pretty much,” Tambry said, “So let’s do our best not to let them know we’re gone, yeah?”

“And how would we go about doing that, hmm?” Nate asked.

“We’ve still got a bag of fireworks, right?” Tambry asked, “Unless you left them in the van.”

“I left most of them in the car, but serendipity must be on your side today Tambers, because I did bring some firecrackers,” Nate said, dropping his bag on the desk while he dug through it. He pulled the firecrackers out triumphantly just as Thompson returned to the room. 

“You guys ready to go?” he asked, eying the firecrackers warily. 

“Yeah, just let me set these up real quick,” Nate said.

“Please tell me you’re not gonna burn down the building,” Thompson groaned.

“We’re just making sure our exit is covered,” Robbie said, “Don’t want those things following us out of the camp, ya know?”

“Alright, on the count of three I’m gonna light ‘em up,” Nate said, swinging his bag back over his shoulder. “Everybody ready?”

“Hang on, let’s get out of here first,” Tambry said, “All of us making a mad dash for the one door sounds chaotic.”

They filed out, and Nate stood in the doorway to the office as the others waited in the main room. Wendy had one hand on the door and the other on her hatchet, and she smiled when she noticed the firecrackers.

“Okay, on three,” Nate said, “One. Two. Three!”

####  LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

Okay, so they weren’t cannibals. And alright, maybe it was a little early in the apocalypse to be worried about that kind of thing, but after playing  _ The Last of Us _ Candy had decided that it was better to be safe than sorry about these things. 

“Oh my god, these pancakes are amazing,” Mabel said, digging into her breakfast with Grenda. Candy was fairly certain that Mabel’s plate had more syrup on it than actual pancake, but that wasn’t a surprise. The only thing different from how Mabel usually took her pancakes was the lack of glitter, but Candy supposed that in an apocalypse there were some things that couldn’t be helped.

“Bet you’re glad we didn’t listen to you now, huh Candy?” Grenda said, grinning smugly through her mouthful of pancake.

“I’ll admit that this wasn’t a complete mistake,” Candy said, taking another sip of her coffee, a beverage which had absolutely nothing to do with her change in tune.

A happy squeal came from across the room, and Candy looked over to see Waddles happily playing with a group of children. Mabel let out her own squeal at the scene. “Gosh, they’re so cute!”

“Well at least cuteness seems to be surviving the zombie apocalypse,” Candy said. Mabel shot her a disapproving look.

“Oh, don’t be such a spoil sport,” Mabel said.

“I’m sorry that my cynical nature is ruining your apocalypse?”

Mabel stuck her tongue out, and Grenda giggled at the two of them. Candy took another sip of her coffee as she scanned the room again. There were other groups eating and talking amongst themselves, but they seemed more somber. Candy wondered if they’d seen zombies yet, if they’d seen what this apocalypse really meant. She wondered if, when her friends finally saw what was waiting for them in Oregon, they’d still be able to laugh and makes jokes like they were now.

Pacifica was off to the side, talking quietly with the sheriff, and showing him something on her phone. Maybe trying to get some information on their missing prisoner? Candy wondered what the chances of actually finding that guy were, only to decide that they weren’t high. He could be anywhere from Canada to a boat to Russia to dead in a ditch. Hell, if he knew he was immune he could even be hiding in a fallen city, or in some overrun town. Or maybe he had an off the grid safe house in the woods, where he would hide out while the world crumbled down around him.

...This wasn’t a helpful train of thought. Candy took another sip of coffee and shook all thoughts of failure from her head. Now was not the time to be a pessimist, now was the time to finally absorb some of Mabel’s endless optimism. They were going to beat the odds and find this guy, and then they were going to go rescue Mabel’s great uncles and the other scientists. Maybe their prisoner wasn’t even hiding! Maybe his time in prison and narrow escape from death had changed his perspective on life, and he was now helping people survive. Maybe he knew about his immunity and was using it to clear a place for survivors. Maybe he had a safe haven in the woods and was broadcasting his location to the world in the hopes of helping as many people as possible!

Yeah, okay, that was never gonna happen. But it was a nice thought.

“You okay Candy?” Mabel asked, “You’ve been mumbling to yourself for awhile now.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Candy said, shaking her head as if that would clear her thoughts. “I was just thinking.”

“What about?” Mabel asked, “Maybe we can help you sort out your thoughts a bit?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Candy said, “I was just thinking about-”

Candy was cut off by gunfire, and the room fell silent as they turned around towards the door. There had been three shots, then silence, and it made everyone uneasy. The silence was broken by Sheriff Blubs talking into his radio.

“Deputy? Everything alright out there?” he asked. The radio crackled, but offered no response. “Deputy, please respond.”

Grenda reached down and picked up her baseball bat, gripping it tightly as they all waited in silence, eyes trained on the doors. Candy reached for her own weapon, a fire axe that she may or may not have stolen from their apartment building.

“Deputy, respond,” the radio crackled again, but something was off about the sound. It seemed like it was echoing. “Durland! What’s going on!”

Blubs broke his professionalism, voice rising almost to a shout, and Candy realized what it meant that the radio was echoing. “Shit.”

The door burst open, and Deputy Durland came through, but he wasn’t alone, and he wasn’t human. “Shit!”

The zombies flooded the room, and everything broke out in chaos. The zombies made these awful, almost guttural noises as they attacked, and Blubs had started firing at them. The children were crying, and there were people shouting and chairs scraping as everyone scrambled to get away. Someone went down screaming, and Candy was suddenly very glad that she hadn’t had anything to eat, because wow, that was horrifying. But in the middle of it all was a distressed squealing that made her sick to her stomach anyhow.

“Waddles!” Mabel screamed, and Candy looked to where he last was only to find that he’d vanished in the pandamonium.

“Mabel, we need to go,” Pacifica was suddenly with them, grabbing her girlfriend by the arm and trying to drag her away.

“No! We can’t leave him, I have to find him!” Mabel said, “Waddles! Waddles, where are you?”

Mabel’s voice was breaking, but the pig was nowhere to be found, and Candy couldn’t hear the squealing anymore. She didn’t want to think about what that meant, so she joined Pacifica in trying to get their friend out. “Mabel, we need to get somewhere safe. The world is depending on us staying alive, remember?”

Mabel was still crying out, her voice broken and hopeless, but she stopped fighting and let herself be dragged out of the dining room and into the kitchen.

“Everybody, get somewhere safe!” Blubs was standing at the kitchen door, waving in who he could. The girls ran passed him, taking shelter behind the counters. “Is that everyone?”

“Everyone who’s coming this way,” a man said, comforting a little girl who was sitting on the counter furthest from the door.

Blubs nodded and shut the door, and Grenda moved forward to help him barricade it shut. Mabel was crying into Pacifica’s shoulder, and of the half dozen or so other people who’d made it inside most were sobbing just as hard.

“What do we do now?” Candy asked. The kitchen was filled with possible weapons, and they probably had food in here, but the only other exit was chained shut. They were pretty much trapped.

“Wait them out, I guess,” Pacifica said, “Hope that they wander off.”

There was a thump on the doors, and Candy looked over to see Deputy Durland snapping at the porthole window of one of the doors. Candy noticed that Sheriff Blubs looked a little paler at the sight. “We should hide or cover the window. If they can’t see us they’ll probably leave faster.”

“Worth a try,” Pacifica said, “I’ll bet there’s foil in here somewhere.”

“Over here,” the man said, holding up a box of foil wrap. Candy took it, then started wrapping it over the windows. The deputy kept his dead eyes focused on her, and that took the cake for the most unnerving experience of Candy’s life. 

Covering the windows was unlikely to actually ward off the zombies, but it would probably speed the process of being forgotten about so long as they were quiet, and it would definitely make everyone feel a bit better.

“How long do you think they’ll stick around for?” the man with the little girl asked.

“That depends on how aware they are of their surroundings, and whether or not a distraction comes,” Candy said, “If something else gets their attention they’ll be out of here in no time. If they’re no longer aware of us being here they’ll probably wander off to get food somewhere else. Worst case scenario, they stand around dormant without stimuli. If that’s the case we’ll have a serious problem getting out of here, so I suggest we take stock of how much food we have and start rationing it out.”

“Is there anyway to figure out what they’ll do?” asked a younger man in a ballcap.

Candy looked to Pacifica, who gave a half hearted shrug. “I can check the KGW site, see if they know anything about it. Assuming this place has wifi, that is.”

“Yeah, use BTstaff, first two letters are capital. The password is LadyLuck, no space, capitalize both L’s,” said a woman in a blue and gold vest that looked suspiciously like a Vegas Casino uniform.

“Thanks,” Pacifica said, pulling out her phone and fiddling with it. Candy wondered if she was actually checking the website, or if she was just emailing Dr. McGucket again.

“While she’s doing that we should start taking inventory,” said Candy, “We might have to make this stuff last for awhile, so-”

She was cut off by more screaming, though it sounded muffled and sort of far away. It was accompanied by groaning, but none of it seemed to be nearby. Candy carefully pulled back the foil and looked back into the ballroom. Deputy Durland was gone, and at first the room seemed empty of everything but corpses and blood, but then she spotted the area where the zombies had congregated. It was another doorway, though Candy couldn’t see where it went, and the crowd was steadily pushing their way into it. Candy recovered the window.

“What’s going on?” Grenda asked, frowning.

“The zombies got into another room, I’m not sure which one,” Candy said, “It’s kinda to the right, in a corner.”

“That’s the staff room,” said the woman in the vest, looking sick, “I saw some of the others going in there.”

The little girl started crying again, and everyone grew quiet as the implications of that sank in. Nobody spoke until the noise had died down again.

“How do you think they got it?” Candy asked.

“To the staff room? There’s a window on the door, and most of the furniture is installed, it’d be a hard room to barricade,” said the woman. “But there’s another door to get out of there, so whoever was in there could have made it out.”

Personally Candy thought that the screaming was a pretty good indicator that they  _ hadn’t _ made it out, but she kept her thoughts to herself.

“Are they at least gone then?” asked the man. Candy frowned, but peeled back the foil to take a look anyway. From what she could see of the ballroom, everything that could move was gone. Candy replaced the foil before moving over to the other window, but the other side of the room was just as empty.

“I think it’s clear,” Candy said, “Unless they’re all in one of our blindspots, which is certainly possible, but as long as we’re quick and quiet I think we could get out of here without being swarmed.”

“Let’s do it then,” Pacifica said, “We need to get back on the road, and there’s no telling how long it’ll stay clear. Everyone find a weapon, then we go.”

“What if something’s out there though?” asked the man, “If one of those things is standing in a blind spot, it’ll scream when it sees us, and then we’ll get swarmed all over again. I can’t put my daughter at risk.”

Pacifica nodded, “You’re right. Let’s send out a scouting team then. Once they give the all clear, the rest will follow. They can close off the other doors too, that way nothing sneaks up on the main group.”

“That’s a nice plan, but who are we going to send?” asked the casino employee. “I can’t imagine anyone volunteering.”

There was a part of Candy that recognized that the scouting crew was probably going to die; based on the logic of every horror movie she’d ever seen, any other outcome was practically impossible. 

But there was a bigger part of Candy that decided that she had just been issued a direct challenge, and failing to meet it would mean proving that humanity was a bunch of cowards. There were a lot of places to draw strength from, but for her, the most powerful was spite.

“I’ll do it,” Candy said. The look on the woman’s face was absolutely worth it. Even if she died out there, she got to shock a cynic before she went out, and that made the risk worth it.

“Me too,” Grenda said, “I still haven’t had a chance to break in this bat.”

“I’ll go too,” Pacifica gave Mabel’s shoulder a quick squeeze before stepping away. “It was my idea, after all.”

“If you’re going, I’m going,” Mabel said, scrubbing at her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater. “We stay together, no matter what.”

“I’ll go too,” Sheriff Blubs spoke up, Candy had almost forgotten he was there. He still looked distraught, but his eyes were filled with determination. “No matter how bad things get, my job is to protect and serve.”

“Alright, Candy, Grenda, I want you to focus on closing off the ballroom. Mabel, Sheriff Blubs, and I will make sure there’s nothing alive left in there,” Pacifica turned to the others. “When the room is clear, we’ll signal the rest of you, so keep the windows clear. If we’re lucky, nothing will go wrong. If not, be ready to let us in and reset the barricade. No matter what happens, we need to be as quiet as possible.”

“We ready to go then?” Candy asked. Everyone nodded, and Grenda and Sheriff Blubs carefully cleared the doors. “Let’s do this.”

The sheriff was the first one out the door, followed by Candy and Grenda, with Mabel and Pacifica bringing up the rear. Nothing immediately jumped out at them, and after a quick check of the corners it looked like they really were alone.

Candy made her way over to the staff room door, or what was left of it. The glass of the window was shattered, and the lock was busted, but the hinges were intact enough that she could swing the door shut. Grenda tapped on her shoulder, then nodded towards one of the tables. 

Candy wasn’t the strongest person,but with Grenda to help they managed to silently turn a table on its side and block off the door, then move a second table in front of it to create the illusion of safety. If nothing else, the table wouldn’t fall over and blow their cover. Candy scanned the room for other doors, but it looked like the only other doors went to the kitchen and back out to the gambling floor. Grenda gestured towards Mabel and Pacifica, who were searching the room for stragglers with Sheriff Blubs, stabbing corpses when they found them. It didn’t look like anything that would rise again had stayed here, but double tap was never a bad idea.

She and Grenda had started making their way towards the others when they heard it. Though Candy wasn’t really sure what  _ it _ was. Or  _ where  _ it was. Both equally horrifying things to not know. Some kind of snuffling? Or, no, that wasn’t the word. It was more like snorting. But what would be-

“Waddles?” Mabel called, keeping her voice low enough not to carry out of the room, but loud enough that whatever was making the noise was sure to hear. For a moment there was dead silence. Then there was a horrible squeal, something that sounded more like a wart hog than the piglet they’d lost. Then Sheriff Blubs went down in a pink and red blur, so fast he didn’t even have time to scream.

_ Shit. _

####  ELLENSBURG, WASHINGTON

Dipper woke up to pain. Again. He was getting really sick of waking up in pain. He was definitely missing his bed. Screw cellphones, beds were the thing he was most upset to lose.

Though, he didn’t remember falling asleep this time. He remembered driving to Ellensburg with Bill, they were almost there. They’d just gotten off the highway, and Bill was still giving him all kinds of bullshit facts about Canada, but then there’d been an RV in the road, and  _ oh, right. _

Dipper opened his eyes to see the ceiling of the truck. He was laid out in the back seat again. He tried to sit up, but that sent the world spinning and he fell back against the seat again.

“Whoa, calm down, kid,” Bill said, “You already slammed your head into the dashboard, no need to hit it on anything else.” 

Dipper closed his eyes until the pain faded, then  _ slowly _ sat up again. Bill was in the front seat, his crossbow in his lap. Dipper’s eyes widened at the windshield, it was  _ shattered _ . He couldn’t even see what was on the other side of it, past a brown blur that he assumed was the tree they’d hit. “What happened?”

“We hit a tree to avoid a bunch of robbers. They took all the food and most of our weapons. You got knocked out, duh, and since I know it’s your next question you’ve been out for about two hours.”

“You stayed with me for two hours?”

Bill gave him an offended look. “Dipper, come on. Who leaves a friend alone and unconscious on the side of the road? Give me  _ some  _ credit.”

“Right, sorry,” Dipper said, “I just thought you wanted to get to Canada as soon as possible.”

“I do, but I also try to not be a complete sack of shit,” Bill said.

“Just kind of an asshole then?” 

“Now you’re getting it,” Bill grinned. “So how long do you think it’ll be before you feel up to walking? And also, can you aim a gun?”

“I could probably walk now if you don’t mind me leaning on you,” Dipper said, “But I’ve never even fired a gun.”

“Firing is the easy part,” Bill said, pulling the handgun from the glove compartment. “I’ve got it loaded, I can teach you how to do that when we get somewhere safe, but to fire just turn off the safety, which is this lever here, then pull the slide back to put a bullet in the chamber, then point at whatever you want to shoot, and pull the trigger. After you’ve shot it once it’ll grab a new bullet automatically, beauty of a semi automatic beretta. I suggest two hands, since you’re new at this and there’s going to be a kickback when you fire. Just try to keep it steady and it shouldn’t throw you off too much. You’ve got 15 bullets in a magazine, make sure you count them when you start firing. There is nothing worse than running out of bullets and not realizing it, that’s definitely the most embarrassing thing that can happen to an action hero.”

“Am I an action hero now?” 

“No, you’re the sassy love interest, now hush, I’m not done with my gun safety sparknotes,” Bill said. “Rule number one: finger off the trigger until you’re ready to fire. I already know you’re jumpy, the last thing we need is your gun going off accidentally because of a squirrel. Rule number two: stop glaring at me, you know it’s true. Rule number three: never point a gun at a person, and by a person I mean me. I know I’m annoying, but if you shoot me I will return from the dead and haunt your ass for all eternity, got it Pine Tree?”

“I’m not gonna shoot you Bill. Or anyone else who’s actually alive for that matter,” Dipper said.

“Preferably, you’ll shoot no one at all ever. Which brings me to rule number four: do not fire unless you absolutely have to. Guns are loud, and if you start firing it’s only going to draw more attention to us. So unless you have no other option but dying, don’t shoot anything,” Bill said.

Dipper frowned. “How am I supposed to defend myself with a weapon I can’t use?” 

“By trusting me,” Bill said, “I’ll keep you safe, kid, scout’s honor.”

“I refuse to believe that you were ever a scout,” Dipper said.

“Then you’re not as naive as I thought you were,” Bill said, “You can have the hunting knife too, and when we get somewhere secure I’ll teach you how to fire the other crossbow. Otherwise though you’re still gonna have to trust me, because the rest of our weapons got stolen by a bunch of fucking lumberjacks.”

Dipper sighed, but accepted the gun and the knife. “Alright. Should we start walking then?”

“Probably,” Bill said, “I figure we can find a house in Ellensburg to crash in until we can get some new supplies and another car.”

“Two cars,” Dipper said, “Unless you changed your mind about going North.”

Bill sighed. “Can we argue about directions later? I’ve been sitting in a hot car for two hours and I need a shower.”

Dipper rolled his eyes. “Bill, you’ve needed a shower since the day we met.”

“Fuck you too Pine Tree,” Bill said, pushing his door open and getting out of the car. He pulled the door to the back seat open, then grabbed the backpack he was using as a quiver and the second crossbow. “Let’s get going. We need to get somewhere secure before sunset.”

“What happens at sunset?” Dipper asked. He stumbled a bit on his way out of the car, but Bill was there to steady him.

“The zombies get more active after dark. Some kind of horror movie authenticity thing, I think,” Bill said.

“That sounds like a bullshit cliche that you pulled out of your ass,” Dipper said, pulling away from Bill to walk on his own.

“It  _ is _ a bullshit cliche, but I’m not making it up,” Bill said, and Dipper realized that Bill was falling behind him.

“Why are you walking so slowly?” Dipper turned back with a glare, but Bill only gave him a shit eating grin.

“Just admiring the view.”

Dipper scowled, and tried to pretend that his face was getting red from anger instead of embarrassment. Bill cackled, but he sped up until they were walking side-by-side.

“How far is it into town?” Dipper asked, not so subtly changing the topic.

“I’m not entirely sure. ‘Bout a mile maybe?”

“Great,” Dipper groaned,“Why couldn’t you have crashed the truck closer to civilization?”

“Because I’m an inconsiderate jackass who wants to make you exercise,” Bill’s shit eating grin was back full force.

“You’re the worst.”

“Really? Because I can think of a few things that are worse than me,” Bill said, “Like her!”

Bill fired his crossbow  into the woods, and the corpse of a zombified woman fell through the bushes. Bill dashed ahead to retrieve his arrow, then rejoined Dipper on the road. Dipper gave the bloodied arrow a distasteful look as Bill reloaded it.

“Gross.”

“ _ Efficient _ . I can’t make arrows, kid, so any that  _ can  _ be retrieved,  _ should _ be.”

“Still gross, Bill.”

Bill stuck out his tongue, and Dipper had to laugh at the childishness of it.

“Less laughing, more walking,” Bill said, “Don’t need you attracting anything else by being noisy.”

“Oh yes,  _ I’m _ the noisy one,” Dipper said.

“You totally are. I guarantee that lady was on her way to take a bite out of you,” Bill said.

“Oh, I agree,” Dipper said, “Not even being zombified could make you seem appealing.”

“Lies and slander,” Bill said, “Any zombie would give an arm to take a bite out of me, and you know it.”

“This is ridiculous,” Dipper said, “I’m not arguing with you about who zombies find more appetizing.”

“I’m going to accept that as a concession that it’s me,” Bill said. Dipper sighed. This was going to be a long walk.

####  SALEM, OREGON

“One. Two. Three!”

The moment Nate got to three Wendy threw open the door and lead the way out. She could hear the firecrackers going off behind her, as well as the footsteps of her friends. Wendy ran full force back to the van, the others hot on her heels. A quick look back found that everyone was keeping up surprisingly well, and there were no zombies to be seen.

Wendy was the first to reach the van, and she tugged open the side door before jumping in. Tambry was the next inside, then Thompson was pulling open the driver’s side door and climbing in. Robbie came next, claiming the passenger seat, and Nate pulled himself in just as the firecracker started to die down. Wendy slid the door closed, and Thompson started up the van. Or, tried to.

“Not this again,” Nate groaned, “Why didn’t you ever replace this piece of shit?”

“It’s not a piece of shit!” Thompson said, “And cars are expensive, okay?”

Nate may have continued with his nerve fueled insults, but then the engine started up and Thompson started to drive. The gate opened when they pulled up to it, and just like that they were out of harm’s way. At least for the time being.

Wendy slumped in her seat with a sigh of relief. They still didn’t have any truly secure location to hunker down in, but at least they weren’t trapped by a horde anymore.

“Alright, we need to figure out our next move,” Wendy said, “I’d rather not stay near a horde like that, especially when the only thing keeping them in is a chain link fence and an automatic gate, and we can’t go back to Portland.”

“Nate said he saw a house with a fenced in yard on the way here, we could crash there,” Robbie said.

“What? We can’t break into someone’s house! That’s illegal!” Thompson said.

“Oh, because the police are  _ absolutely _ still enforcing laws during the zombie apocalypse,” Tambry rolled her eyes.

“Was it an empty house?” Wendy asked.

“I cannot believe you’re even considering this,” Thompson said, “I don’t care if no one’s going to arrest us today, the government is still intact, order will be restored, and eventually, someone’s going to come home, realize that we broke into their house, and then press charges.”

“I don’t know,” Nate said, ignoring Thompson’s protests, “From the outside it looked just as deserted as the rest of the town, but there was a garage that a car could be in, and honestly, if I were somewhere secure, I wouldn’t be advertising the fact.”

“Well we can’t try to break into a house with people in it, there’s no telling how they’d react to that,” Wendy said, “We’ll keep a look out for it on our way out of town, see if it’ll be feasible as a safe place to crash.”

“Oh my god,  _ no _ !” Thompson said, slamming on the breaks. The car jerked to a stop, Nate slamming into the seat in front of him without a seatbelt to stop his momentum. 

“Jesus fuck, dude! What the hell?” Nate said, clambering back into his seat.

“We’re not breaking into someone’s house, guys! This isn’t a negotiation. I’m not going to commit a crime because you can’t figure out what to do.”

“Well what do  _ you  _ want us to do, Thompson?” Tambry glared at him. “We can’t just stay out in the open, that’d be suicide.”

“We should drive to an area that’s uninfected,” Thompson said, “Canada, maybe. Or we could head East, towards the Midwest.”

“We can’t go East,” Wendy said, “The Midwest may be zombie free now, but the East Coast isn’t. As far as we know the government hasn’t managed to contain this thing, which means it’ll keep spreading. I don’t want to get boxed into some flyover state when there are zombies on all sides. Canada is an option though.”

“Is it though?” Nate asked, “I don’t really feel confident about this piece of shit’s ability to drive to Canada.”

“Not to mention we’d be backtracking,” Tambry said, “And we’d have to take detours off of I-5, because there are abandoned military blockades all through Seattle and North of Portland. Which means we’d probably get lost, unless someone happens to have a paper map.”

Robbie snorted. “You know damn well nobody here has so much as touched a paper map since we got smart phones.”

“Nobody here has touched a paper map full stop,” Nate said.

“My point exactly,” Tambry said, “We’d never be able to navigate to Canada, so why get killed trying when there’s a perfectly good house we can turn into a base of operations?”

“We’re not committing a felony!” Thompson shouted. Wendy didn’t think she’d ever seen him so upset, not even when Nate and Lee had stolen all of his underwear and then hung them from the ceiling of their high school gymnasium. 

The memory almost brought a smile to her face, but thinking of Lee sent a pang of guilt through her. She should have done better; the group was counting on her to protect them, and she failed. She shouldn’t have assumed that the logging camp would be safe, and she should have been more cautious when they saw that it had been abandoned. She failed today, and it cost them Lee, but she wasn’t going to fail again.

“Thompson, I understand your reservations,” Wendy said, “Nobody wants to break into a house. But we need to get somewhere secure. I promise, if we go to this house we won’t do any damage, and we’re not going to take anything. We will leave it as we found it, and we will try to find somewhere else to go as soon as we can.”

“This time, yeah. But once we start rationalizing crimes, it’s not going to stop. This time it’s just shelter, but what happens if we run out of food? Or when we run out of gas? Because that’s our next big problem right there,” Thompson said.

“We’ll get gas from a gas station, the pumps that take cards are still operational. When those stop working, we’ll have to get more creative. Syphon gas from abandoned cars, look for refineries to visit. Whatever it takes,” Tambry said. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“No, desperation causes stupid measures. Things suck, but the country and the government is still intact. Laws still apply. I’m not going to let you guys become criminals,” Thompson said.

“Well what do you want us to do, Thompson?” Tambry spat, “Shelter isn’t just going to fall into our lap!”

“What about that safe haven that was on the radio? Let’s just go there.”

“Great idea, Thompson! One small little problem though, we don’t know where that  _ is _ . And unless we stumble upon another ham radio, we’re not going to find out anytime soon,” Tambry paused, as though considering a new idea. “Of course, if we looked through some of the houses around here we’d probably be able to find one.”

“How do we know that it has to be a ham radio? Maybe they’ve got a regular radio broadcast too. Or a website. There’s got to be another way to get the location of this place,” Thompson said.

“Thompson, if you want to flip through static on the radio, be my guest. But we need a better plan that that,” Wendy said, “As much as I’d love it if we stumbled onto the location of a safe haven in the next five minutes, I really don’t think it’s gonna happen.”

Nate scoffed, “There’s no way in  _ hell _ we’ll find out where that place is in the next five minutes.”

Wendy sighed. This argument wasn’t going to end any time soon, even if they  _ did _ find somewhere to stay it’d come up again sooner or later. It was odd, to see Thompson so firm about something, but it was clear he wasn’t going to back down. She did her best to tune out the back and forth, instead trying to think of anywhere else in Salem they could go to. When she was in high school she’d spent every summer here, but she hadn’t done much hanging out back then.

They could go to the community pool, but that fence was only chain link and she wasn’t sure if it actually went all the way around the pool. Not to mention the only buildings were the bathroom and the life guard’s office, neither of which would be appealing to sleep in. They could try the strip mall, but there were no guarantees on the being safe, and it would probably be the first stop for any looters who passed through. She knew there were a few hotels in the area, but a hotel would be hard to secure and Thompson might object to breaking into that too.

“Oh my god, we’re just trying to survive!” Tambry shouted, dragging Wendy out of her thoughts. “I get that morality is important, Thompson, but I’d rather be alive and morally gray than some dead eyed monster!”

“Tambry, you’re going way beyond “morally gray” right now,” Thompson said, “We left Nate and Lee’s place  _ yesterday _ , and you’re already letting yourself grow colder.”

“I am not-”

“No, Thompson’s right,” Nate said, “Lee is  _ dead _ , Tambry. But it’s like that doesn’t even register to you! You were blaming him for dying before his body even grew cold. It’s like you’re not even  _ trying  _ to be a decent human being anymore!”

“Oh, I’m sorry for trying to keep calm during the apocalypse. God forbid I do anything other than break down completely every time something goes wrong in a horribly dangerous situation!”

“Do you even hear yourself right now?” Thompson asked, “Because you’re doing nothing but proving me correct. If we want to make it out of this mess without losing ourselves along the way, we need to be careful about what we allow ourselves to do. This is going to pass, and they  _ are _ going to find a cure. I just wanna make sure that we’re still us when they do.”

“So do I, Thompson,” Tambry said, “I’m just a little more worried about making sure we avoid becoming  _ zombies _ .”

“We can do  _ both _ , you know,” Thompson said, “It’s not one or the other. We can survive this without becoming shitty people.”

“I’m not saying we need to be shitty, Thompson, but we need to be willing to break some rules too,” Tambry sighed. “And honestly? I wouldn’t hold out much hope for a cure. From what I saw on the web before we left, there has been zero success at containing this thing, and zero success finding a cure. Nobody knows where it came from, nobody knows how it works, and nobody knows how to stop it. If I’m acting cold hearted, it’s because I know what’s really out there. I watched all the videos the news won’t show, I’ve read through all the forums of people who are going through everything we are going through right now. The world has changed. We can either change with it, or we can get ourselves killed by trying to live in the past.”

“I refuse to believe that the only way to get through this mess is by becoming heartless criminals,” Thompson said.

“Well then you’re a fool,” Tambry said.

Thompson frowned, but he looked like he had a reply, and Wendy wasn’t going to sit here all day listening to them talk ethics. Not when they still needed to find shelter. “Okay, stop! None of this is helping us decide what to do.”

“We’re going to that house,” Tambry said.

“No, we need to get to the safe haven. There will be people there, and there’s strength in numbers,” Thompson said.

“Thompson, nobody here doesn’t want to go to the safe haven,” Robbie said, “But that doesn’t change the fact that we don’t know where it is. We need a place to crash until we figure it out.”

“Yeah Thompson, it’s not someone’s just gonna call us up and give us directions,” Nate said, “The government killed Siri, remember?”

Wendy sighed, but before she or anyone else could interject, a phone started ringing. Wendy’s eyes widened, and for a moment no one moved at all. The phone kept ringing, and then Wendy unfroze. “Where’s the phone? We need to answer it.”

“I thought the government turned off cell service?” Nate asked, “I didn’t even  _ bring _ my phone! Who brought their-”

He trailed off, because he and everyone else knew  _ exactly _ who would have brought their phone, and they all turned to face Tambry, who was digging through her bag to get her cell. “I don’t recognize the number, but it’s from Oregon.”

“If this is a telemarketer I’m suing,” Nate said. Wendy shushed him as Tambry answered the phone.

“Hello?” Tambry switched the phone to speaker and then waited in silence with the others.

“Uh, hello,” answered a man’s voice, he seemed very unsure about this call. “Are you TambersIsGranders?”

Tambry sighed, and Nate was desperately trying not to laugh. “Er, yeah. But I picked that screen name when I was like 12, you can just call me Tambry.  _ Please _ just call me Tambry.”

“Right! Hello Tambry, my name is Dr. Fiddleford H. McGucket,” he said, sounding much more sure of himself. “I found your number and your posts on the internet, and since I’ve sort of done everything I can to help already, I thought I’d try to help you. Er, if you need help, that is. Your last post mentioned that you and your friends were going to Salem? How’d that go?”

Tambry bit her lip, looking up at the others in turn. Wendy couldn’t say what she was looking for. “Not well. The camp we’d decided to go to turned out to be not so safe after all, and one of us died.”

“I’m so sorry,” McGucket said.

“We’re trying to figure out our next move now,” Tambry said, “And that actually is something you could maybe help us with?”

“I’ll certainly try! What do you need me to do?”

“Well before things went too far South, we found a ham radio. And someone had been broadcasting about a safe haven. But we were...interrupted, before we could find out where it was. I don’t suppose you happen to have a ham radio wherever you are?”

“I don’t,” he said, “But I do have access to a satellite, and that thing picks up everything. Do you remember the channel number the broadcast was on?”

“Uh…” Tambry looked at her, Wendy rolled her eyes.

“It was 6661,” she said. 

“Alright, give me just a moment,” McGucket said. There was some shuffling on the other line, as well as a tapping that might have come from typing.

“Do you think he’ll actually be able to find it?” Nate whispered. Wendy shrugged. Nothing about this call seemed plausible to her, yet here it was. Just happening.

They could hear other voices through the phone now, though it was hard to hear what they were saying. A woman was saying something about a prisoner, but that just sparked more arguing. Someone said something about dangerous, and she heard another voice talking about false hope. McGucket yelled something along the lines of “shut the hell up or leave,” and the voices went quiet. Then there was more tapping, and McGucket cried out in victory.

“I got it!” McGucket said, “The place you’re looking for is a town called Gravity Falls, it’s in Southern Oregon. You’re in Salem right now, right?”

“Right,” Tambry said.

“Well it’s about three and a half hours down I-5, get off at Exit 43 and follow the signs. If you leave now, you’ll make it before nightfall.”

“Thank you!” Tambry said, “Thank you so much.”

“If you and your group ever need a hand, let us know,” Wendy said, “We can try to find you and help out.”

McGucket laughed. “I’d love to keep in contact, but I’m afraid there’s not much you all could do to help us out. We’re trapped in an underground laboratory that’s been completely overrun by the dead. But...there is a rescue team heading towards us from the South. Maybe they could meet up with you guys in Gravity Falls and compare notes?”

“We’d be happy to,” Tambry said, “Do you have a way we could contact them now?”

“I’ve only got an email address, but if it’s alright with you I could pass on your phone number to them? I’m willing to bet at least one of them has a cell phone, and if not I’m sure they could find one.”

“That’s fine,” Tambry said, “Do you know how long we’ll have cell service for?”

“As long as the towers have power and are undamaged, you should have service. I don’t know how long that’ll be though, trying to figure out which power plants are still running has been difficult. But I’m working on that too,” McGucket said.

“Okay. Thank you again, Dr. McGucket,” Tambry said.

“You’re welcome,” he said, “Feel free to call me again at any time.”

Tambry hung up, and for a moment they all sat in stunned silence.

“....it’s not like someone’s just gonna call us up and give us a million dollars,” Nate said, looking expectantly at Tambry’s phone. It didn’t start ringing again.

Wendy snorted. “Alright, let’s get back on the road. We’ve got a lot of driving to do.”

####  LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

“Everyone up on the tables, now!” Pacifica ordered, scrambling to pull Mabel up on the table with her. It wasn’t the most ideal place to be, but since they had no visual on Waddles…

“Waddles!” Mabel called out again. The zombie pig squealed, a sound that Pacifica found to be highly reminiscent of nails on a chalkboard. 

“Oh my god, we’re going to die,” Candy moaned from the other side of the room. “Animals can be turned, we’re all going to die.”

“We’re not going to die!” Pacifica said, “We just need to draw him to us and put him down.”

Mabel whimpered, and Pacifica felt a pang of guilt. Waddles had meant so much to Mabel, in a lot of ways he was her best friend, and now…

“Where’d he go?” Candy shouted. Pacifica turned to where Sheriff Blubs had been downed, but there was no sign of the zombie pig amidst the gore.

“Shit,” Pacifica scanned the room, but she couldn’t see the pig anymore. There was a million tables to hide under, and Waddles was so small he couldn’t be seen behind the tables either. “I don’t see him, he might be under a table. Shit!”

There was another ear piercing squeal, and then something rammed into the table she and Mabel were on. Mabel had been kneeling, but Pacifica was standing and the movement nearly threw her off balance. Mabel managed to steady her, but Waddles was about two inches from catching her hand in his jaws.

“You okay, Paz?” Mabel asked.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Pacifica said, giving her girlfriend a watery smile, “Thanks Mabel.”

“Paz? We need to get out of here before the rest of the zombies come back,” Candy said, “These tables won’t protect us from a regular zombie.”

“How though?” Grenda asked, “If we try to make a run for it we’re dead. And we can’t fight what we can’t see.”

There was another squeal, then Grenda’s table shuddered and groaned.

“That’s not gonna hold if he keeps hitting it,” Pacifica said, her face paling.

“We’re all going to die,” Candy said, panic edging into her voice.

“Hey! We’re not going to die,” Pacifica said, “We’re smart, and resourceful. We are  _ not _ going to die in some random casino. We just need to figure out a way to draw him out.”

Waddles squealed again, then rammed her and Mabel’s table once more. The table creaked ominously, and Pacifica swore she could feel the wood splitting apart under their weight.

“Hey Paz?” Mabel said, “I know you’re rich and your parents hated fun, but you still played the floor is lava when you were a kid, right?”

Pacifica had not, her mother would have killed her if she’d ever attempted to jump on the furniture, but she was familiar enough with the concept that she was fairly certain she could pull it off.

“Head for the exit, I’m gonna try and get Sheriff Blubs’ gun,” Pacifica said. Waddles squealed again. “Jump!”

She and Mabel jumped onto another set of tables just as Waddles hit their old one. It collapsed with the impact, and Pacifica spared a moment to watch as the pig tore through the white tablecloth looking for them, leaving stains of red in his wake. Then Waddles turned his dead eyes onto her, and squealed as he charged her table.

“Hey! Bacon Breath!” Candy shouted. Waddles turned towards her, squealing in rage, then redirected his strike, disappearing beneath the tables again. Candy was ready though, and she didn’t even falter when the pig rammed into her table. “Grenda, help me keep him busy, don’t jump on the same table twice, and get him to destroy as many tables as possible. If we can see him, we can hit him.”

Waddles squealed as he rammed Candy’s table again, but it held firm. Pacifica had to give Candy props for holding herself together as well as she was. Pacifica had been terrified when Waddles was targeting her table.

“Paz, are you just gonna sit there or are you gonna get that gun?” Candy said. Pacifica shook herself into action, turning and getting ready to jump to the next table. “Stay as quiet as you can, don’t jump until he squeals to signal his charge, I don’t want him going after you and Mabel again.”

Waddles squealed again, as if he’d been waiting for that direction, and Pacifica jumped just as she heard a table collapse. She turned, Candy’s old table was down, but Candy had moved in time and was now signaling Grenda.

“Bad pig!” Grenda scolded, and Waddles turned to her, squealing once more as he charged. Pacifica turned and made her next jump, touching down just as she heard another table collapse. Pacifica whirled around, but Grenda had moved already, though she seemed concerned. “Candy, I don’t think these tables can take me jumping on ‘em. This one’s already unsteady.”

“That’s okay, just make sure you move as soon as he comes after you. I’ll try to keep him preoccupied with me. Just make sure you plan your jumps out, okay?” Waddles squealed, and Candy’s table shuddered. “Is that the best you’ve got, piggy?”

Pacifica tuned out Candy’s taunts and refocused on her task, she had to make three more jumps before she got to where Blubs had been downed. She could do this. She heard Waddles squeal again, then made her next jump. She looked over to see how Mabel was doing, she had further to go but apparently she hadn’t let herself get distracted because she was further along than Pacifica was. Waddles squealed again, and Pacifica jumped, and another table collapsed. Pacifica turned, Candy had moved again, and now Grenda was shouting for the pig’s attention. 

Waddles’ squeal rang out, and Pacifica made her last jump as another table collapsed. She turned to check on Grenda, she was slowly making her way further inward, toward the exit, and Candy was now making ham quips that were kind of wasted on a mindless zombie pig.

Pacifica turned back to what was left of Blubs, and she felt her stomach lurch. The man was no longer recognizable, which was horrifying, but Pacifica was kind of thankful too, because she wasn’t sure if she could handle looking at a corpse that resembled someone she actually knew. She shook her head, scanning the ground for the gun Blubs had been carrying. It didn’t take her too long to find it, but getting it was going to be a bit more of a challenge. There was a pretty decent chance that there was no way to get it without getting off of the tables, unless she could come up with something to grab it  with, but her options were limited to plastic silverware and paper napkins, so that probably wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

Pacifica turned back to Candy and Grenda, they’d created a pretty decent open area with all the tables they’d collapsed, Waddles was almost always visible and he seemed to have forgotten about her and Mabel. Mabel herself was pretty close to the edge of the tables, a few more jumps and she’d be stuck. Pacifica took a deep breath. If she timed it right, she could probably get the gun and be back on a table before anyone realized she’d even moved. And even if Waddles noticed, it was unlikely that he’d be able to get to her in time. It’d be easy. She could do it.

Pacifica got ready to jump down, waiting for Waddles to squeal again and signal the perfect moment. She could do this. 

Waddles squealed, and Pacifica jumped, hitting the ground and snatching up the gun in one fluid motion. She ran and pulled herself onto the next table, rolling into the center just as another squeal rang out. She wasn’t prepared for it when Waddles rammed into her table, but she was low to the ground and he didn’t knock her off.

“Paz! Are you okay?” Grenda called out, and Pacifica gave her a thumbs up, then carefully stood, scanning for Waddles again. He was hidden under the tables once more, but she figured if she made her way over to Candy and Grenda he’d follow her and they could get him out in the open again. 

“I’m heading your way guys, get ready,” Pacifica said, jumping back the way she’d come. She could hear Waddles behind her, slamming into tables just as she was jumping off of them. She kept up a steady pace, not slowing or pausing, and he couldn’t keep up. It didn’t take her long to get back to Candy and Grenda, and when she did, Candy started taunting again.

Waddles shot out from under the tables to get to her, and the table shuddered as he made contact. Candy kept taunting him, and Pacifica undid the safety on the gun as she tried to line up her shot. When she was in high school, one of her body guards had taken her to a shooting range and let her practice with his handgun. She was rusty, and this gun was very different, but she was pretty sure that if she got a clear shot she could hit Waddles. Maybe.

At the very least she could probably slow him down.

Waddles squealed and charged Candy again, and Candy jumped out of the way just as her table collapsed. Waddles tore through the tablecloth, and Pacifica took a deep breath, and fired.

Her arms shook with the recoil, but she’d kept steady enough to hit her target. Waddles collapsed in a heap, and everything was silent.

“Is he…” Mabel trailed off, not wanting to finish her question, but unable to see for herself.

“Yeah,” Pacifica said, “I’m sorry Mabel.”

“We should double tap,” Grenda said, “Just to be sure.”

“Double tap?” Pacifica questioned. She’d never heard that term before, but she was betting that it was somehow videogame related.

“She means hit him again, just to be certain that he’s down for the count,” Candy said, “It’s a good idea, actually.”

“Oh,” Pacifica took aim again, trying to figure out where his head would be.

“No!” Candy said, “Don’t fire again, it’s too loud, and we should save the bullets.”

“But you just said-” 

“I know what I said! But we can’t waste bullets on double tap, not when I’ve got a perfectly good fire axe,” Candy raised the axe in question, and Pacifica lowered her gun and clicked the safety back on. 

“Right. Good idea,” Pacifica said. Candy dropped down, and carefully crept towards Waddles. She slammed the axe into his head and few times, and he stayed down. Candy seemed satisfied. 

“Let’s get the others and get out of here,” Candy said, “And can someone make sure that Blubs won’t come back?”

“On it,” Grenda said, hopping off the table and making her way over to Blubs’ body. Candy and Pacifica made their way over to the barricade, then signaled through the windows that all was well. There was shuffling, then the doors opened and the other survivors cautiously left the safety of the kitchen.

“Where’s Sheriff Blubs?” asked the casino worker. Pacifica shook her head sadly, and the woman nodded in understanding, her face falling a bit.

“Come on, we should get out of here, we had to make a little more noise than intended and something might have heard us,” Pacifica said.

She led the group towards the exit, clicking the safety off of the gun as they made it to the exit. She and Grenda were on point, checking around corners and making sure that the corpses they passed were truly down for the count. They made it back to the casino’s side entrance, where the barricade was half down and Deputy Durland’s shotgun lay abandoned. Mabel picked it up, checking to see if it was loaded, then scaned the room.

“Does anyone see any shotgun ammo?” she asked, “This thing is empty, and unless we find some shells it’s kind of useless.”

Pacifica looked around, but couldn’t see anything that looked like it could have ammo in it.

“Durland always kept his ammo by the window,” said one of the survivors, the father, “If you wanna try and get upstairs be my guest, but we’re getting out of here.”

“Alright,” Pacifica said, “Good luck, and thank you.”

He nodded, then he and his daughter left. The rest of the survivors were quick to follow. The employee paused at the door, then turned, “The stairs are down this hall and on your left, when you get to the second landing just head down the hall, Durland usually camped out at the third window.”

“Thanks,” Pacifica said, the woman nodded and left.

“Should we try for that shotgun ammo?” Mabel asked, eyeing the staircase warily.

“It  _ would  _ be nice to have a shotgun,” Candy said, “But guns are loud, and I don’t think we have too long before this place gets swarmed again, with all the noise Waddles was making. And who knows what’s already up there.”

“I saw a gun store on our way here,” Grenda said, “We could stop by on the way back to the car, grab some ammo from there.”

“I thought we agreed no looting,” Pacifica said.

“That was before we knew Vegas actually did have zombies,” Candy said. “Nearly dying changes things.”

“We could come back when the apocalypse ends and pay them for what we take?” Mabel suggested.

Pacifica sighed, “Yeah, okay.”

The four ventured out again, sticking to the edges of the roads, keeping quiet and keeping low. Grenda led them back to the gun store, and Pacifica frowned when she saw that the door had already been broken open. They moved cautiously into the store.

“Hello?” Pacifica called, keeping her voice low, “Is anyone here?”

No one answered, but Pacifica didn’t let herself relax. Mabel moved quickly to where the ammo was stored, and started grabbing boxes of shotgun shells and putting them into her bag. Pacifica wrote down her phone number on a piece of paper. “What are we taking?”

“Twenty-four boxes of 12-gauge shotgun shells,” Mabel said, “Should we get ammo for the handgun too?”

“Probably,” Pacifica said, “It’s a 9mm Glock.”

Candy moved to start filling her own bag. “Put down twenty-four boxes of that too.”

“Got it,” Pacifica said, “Anything else?”

“Not unless we want to take any other guns,” Candy said.

“Probably not a good idea,” Pacifica said.

“I vote for holsters,” Grenda said, “Put down one for each gun.”

“Good idea,” Pacifica said, updating the makeshift IOU. “That it?”

Mabel scanned the store one final time, then nodded. “Yeah, we should be good.”

“Then let’s get back to the car,” Pacifica said, “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

**Song for this chapter: Blood on my Name by The Brothers Bright**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thank you to everyone still reading. You guys are wonderful, and I'm really, really, REALLY sorry for not getting this to you sooner. Hopefully I'll be getting this fic back on track and you'll hear from me again at the end of August, if not it'll probably be more like September. Sorry. :/
> 
> So, if you care about WHY this chapter taken so long, here's what happened this summer:  
> First there was moving out in May, and while I thought that I could finish writing that first week while I was staying with my Grandmother, my parents had alternative plans of hanging out with me. Then I got back to Florida and started working again, and I quickly realized two things. One, my job is horrible, and sucks any will to be productive right out of me. And two, I can't write without caffeine, and Florida is actually the worst place to find coffee shops. Out Starbucks all suck ass, and the only local coffee shop I know if is super far away and hella busy all the time. I spent a LOT of free time in June and July sitting at my computer and staring at an open google document, trying to finish the last segment of this chapter and just not knowing how. BUT THEN! A new coffee/vape store opened up very near me, and (just last week) I ended up quitting my job because my family is moving at the end of the summer (more on that later). So, after a weekend devoted to recharging my batteries and attending my Aunt's wedding, I was finally able to check it out. It's a 100% perfect writing environment, and I'll probably be going back tomorrow. I'm gonna try and get there as much as possible, but at some point I do have to pack for a cruise/college/move, and my family will be heading back up on Virginia on August 19th, then I'll be moving into college on August 26th. I'm hoping that going back to my new found writing haven will allow me to finish chapter 8 by August 31st, because that's the week I'll be settling into college and trying to find my rhythm with new classes and a new roommate, but I don't know for sure how that's gonna work, and if I can't get the chapter done in time you probably won't see it until the end of September. But once I get settled in to school I'll be more productive, and I'll be able to go get half price Starbucks (thank you meal plan) whenever I want it. So from September on things will hopefully improve for my poor abandoned schedule. 
> 
> Thank you guys again! I love you all to death, and your support means everything to me!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo hoo! Finally on time again! Are you guys ready to learn some things? I hope you have as much fun reading this as I did writing it! By the way, if you haven't checked it out already, you may want to read a transcript of the radio broadcast: http://zombageddon.tumblr.com/post/163455595216/6661-khz
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me guys! See you next month!

#### SALEM, OREGON

“Are we there yet?” Nate whined, then ducked when Tambry made to punch him.

“I swear to god if you ask that one more time I’m going to strangle you,” she said.

“But I’m booooored,” Nate said, drawing out the words to be extra childish. He hated long car rides in general, but long car rides without Lee were downright unbearable. Thinking of Lee made him sad though, and angry, and he didn’t want to have another fight, so instead he tried to entertain himself as best he could, and that meant bothering Tambry as much as humanly possible.

“Nate, seriously, we’ve been on the highway for thirty minutes,” Wendy said, “Can you not do this?”

“Well what am I _supposed_ to do?” Nate asked, changing targets. “Wendy, did you know that boredom is the most lethal of all the states of being? If I’m not properly entertained, I could actually _die_.”

“Sure, when Wendy kills you,” Robbie muttered.

“Why don’t you play a car game or something?” Thompson said, “Like the alphabet game, or I Spy.”

“I spy with my little eye, something that is…” Nate paused for dramatic effect, “green.”

He waited for a moment, but no one answered him. “Guysssss. You have to guesssss.”

Tambry sighed, “Is it a tree?”

“Yes! Gold star for Tambers!” Nate said. “Your turn!”

Tambry glared at him, “I spy with my little eye, something that is _annoying_.”

Nate hummed as he pretended to think about it. “Is it… a zombie?”

“No.”

“Is it a smart car?”

“ _No_.”

“Oh! Is it a billboard?”

“Nate,” Wendy warned.

“Is it a bird? How about a traffic jam? Oh! Or maybe a Florida driver?”

“Oh my god just shut up!” Tambry shouted at him, “It’s you! You’re annoying! Just shut up!”

“But _Tambryyyyy_ ,” Nate whined.

“Oh my god, can I get out?” Tambry said, “This is driving me crazy. I’d seriously rather just walk.”

“You’re not walking,” Wendy said.

“Then make him shut up!”

“Wendyyyyyy,” Nate said, “Tambry’s being mean.”

“Nate, shut up,” Wendy said.

“Robbieeee, Wendy’s being mean.”

“Oh my god, please leave me out of this.”

“But _Robbie- ow_! Tambry! What the hell!”

“Shut _up!_ ”

“Ow! Stop hitting me! I’ll hit you back! Don’t think I won’t!”

“Sure you will- hey!”

“Guys, stop it-”

“She started it!”

“Oh my god, kill me now.”

“Nate! Quit it!”

“Guys! Thompson is trying to drive!”

“Ow! Wendy, let me go!”

“Shut up and behave then!”

“Fucking- Did you just _bite_ me?”

“You wouldn’t let go! I couldn’t breathe!”

“Nate, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Wrong with _me?_ I was being strangled!”

“I wasn’t-”

Wendy was cut off as the car lurched to a stop. Thompson whirled on them.

“Stop it! All of you!” he said, “You’re acting like children!”

“But-”

“No! No buts! No bickering! And no _biting_! If you assholes can’t behave like adults then we’re never going to get there, because I’m going to crash. So sit down, shut up, and keep your hands to yourselves.”

“Sorry,” Wendy said, each of them returning to their seats. Tambry glared sullenly out the window, but she muttered something that might have been an apology. Nate slumped in his seat, staring out the window as the car started moving again.

He watched the trees fly past, occasionally spotting an abandoned car or a zombie on the side of the road. The zombies always attempted to give chase, but they could never keep up, and were quickly left behind. They drove in silence for ages, and Nate sighed. He was so _bored_. And being bored meant thinking of Lee.

The more he thought about it, the worse the situation seemed. They should have checked Lee over, they all saw him fall, they should have known that something was wrong well before he turned. But they hadn’t been paying attention, hadn’t be playing is safe. Now Lee was dead. He and Lee had been best friends pretty much since birth. Not having him around was weird enough on its own, but knowing that Lee was never going to be coming back? It was like he was missing a limb or something. He couldn’t stand to focus on the feeling, he needed a distraction or he was going to go mad. And while he knew he’d probably feel shitty about it later, there was really only one way to distract himself right now. _Sorry Thompson._

“Are we there yet?”

 

#### US-395 N, NEVADA

“Nevada sucks,” Grenda said, glaring at the window. Candy had taken over driving, Pacifica was reading a book, Mabel had cried herself to sleep, and Grenda was bored.

“You should have brought a book,” Pacifica said, “Why didn’t you?”

“Because books are lame, and I thought we’d be fighting more zombies,” Grenda said, “Zombie apocalypse video games are never this boring.”

“Well yeah, they’re games,” Pacifica smiled just a bit. “They cut out all the boring travel scenes so that people don’t get sick of playing the game.”

“Well this is still lame,” Grenda said.

“Yeah, well, Nevada used up all its interesting points in Las Vegas. The rest of the state is unbearably lame because of it,” Pacifica said.

“Hey, guys, I’ve got good news,” Candy said, “We’re about to cross back into California. We’ve got like two more miles.”

“That means there’ll be a rest stop, right?” Grenda asked.

“Yeah, you need to pee?” Candy asked.

“No, but I need to stretch my legs or they’re going to fall off,” Grenda said.

“I don’t know if we should stop yet, we haven’t been driving for very long,” Pacifica said.

“That is a _lie_ ,” Candy said, “Also, _I_ need to pee, so we’re stopping. Wake up Mabel and see if she wants to go too.”

Pacifica sighed, but she turned around and gently shook Mabel awake. “Hey Mabes, we’re stopping for a bit, you wanna go to the bathroom or anything?”

Mabel sniffled as she got up, then nodded, “My face is kinda gross, I wanna go ahead and wash it.”

Candy pulled off the road, and they took the ramp into the rest area’s parking lot. It was totally empty, though Grenda knew that they couldn’t let their guard down. After all, zombies didn’t drive cars.

Grenda grabbed her bat, scanning the building for any signs of life. Or, un-life, as it were. “Oh! Hey, Paz, they’ve got free wifi! You should check to see if McGucket emailed us again!”

“Shit!” Pacifica yanked out her laptop with more force than was probably needed, “I forgot, I was supposed to update him on what we learned in Vegas! I wanted to tell him that animals were vulnerable to infection.”

“You should email KGW too,” Candy said, “They can probably spread the word better than we can.”

“Good idea, I’ll send them something first. My company email is taking forever to boot up anyway,” Pacifica said. “You guys go to the bathroom, I’ll stay with the car. Please be careful.”

“You got it Paz!” Grenda said, leading the way into the rest stop. Candy and Mabel trailed behind. When they got to the bathroom Candy made for the closest stall, but Grenda held her back. “Whoa there, we gotta check the stalls for zombies first!”

“Wouldn’t we hear them if there were zombies in here?” Mabel asked. But Candy shook her head and sighed.

“No, she’s right. Zombie hiding in the bathroom stall is the oldest trick in the book. I can’t believe I forgot about it,” Candy said, standing aside so Grenda could clear the stalls individually.

“That sounds kinda fake, Candy,” Mabel said, “No offense, but I don’t think that a zombie would have the brains needed to stay hidden and ambush someone in a bath-”

Mabel was cut off when Grenda got to the last stall, banging open the door to reveal….nothing.

“You done now?” Mabel asked.

Grenda glared at the empty bathroom. “Yeah. Nevada sucks.”

“We’re in California now,” Candy said, dashing into the closest stall while Mabel made her way to the sink. Grenda went and stood sentry by the door.

“Well then Northern California sucks too,” Grenda said.

“SoCal for life,” Mabel said, though her voice lacked the enthusiasm that usually accompanied the cheer. Grenda sighed. This zombie apocalypse was so lame.

Candy and Mabel finished up, and the three carefully made their way back to the car. Pacifica seemed in a slightly better mood.

“I take it you have good news?” Candy asked, reclaiming the driver’s seat and turning to face the group.

“McGucket got the phone lines back up!” she said. Mabel had her phone pulled out in seconds.

“Who are you calling?” Grenda asked, but as soon as she asked she knew the answer and mentally kicked herself.

Mabel didn’t answer, but switched the phone to speaker as it started to ring. Grenda bit her lip, it seemed to be ringing for an awfully long time. Did phones always ring for this long? Then there was a click, and the group all held their breath in anticipation.

“Hey, this is Dipper, I can’t come to the phone right now,” Mabel slumped in disappointment, and the mood dropped again. “Honestly I probably lost it again, you should really just call Mabel. But hey, leave a message, I’ll call you back as soon as I can!”

There was a beep, and then Mabel spoke. “Hey Dip Dop, please call me back. I’m really worried about you. The girls and I are heading up North, maybe you can meet us up in Oregon? I hope you’re okay. I lov-”

Mabel was cut off by another beep, and she hung up. She slumped in her seat again, and she looked like she might start crying again. Pacifica bit her lip. They were all thinking the same thing, they all knew that Dipper always picked up when Mabel called, unless he absolutely couldn’t.

“Hey, Mabes, I’m sure he’s okay. Maybe he has his phone on silent? Or, he could be somewhere without power, McGucket said that service would only be available in areas that still had power.  Actually, knowing Dipper, he probably lost it somewhere. If he knew that the reception was down he might not have even brought it with him, it would have been a ‘waste of space’. You know how he is,” Pacifica was rubbing circles on Mabel’s back, trying to calm her.

“Did McGucket say anything else?” Candy was hoping to change the subject, and she wasn’t being subtle, but it was probably for the best that they get Mabel’s mind off of her brother. There was no way of knowing where Dipper was at this point, and letting Mabel worry about it would only stress her out.

“Yeah,” Pacifica said, sensing Candy’s ploy and doing her best to help it along. “Apparently he got in touch with some other survivors in Oregon, he gave us their number, and his own, so we don’t have to deal with emails anymore. They’re actually heading to a safe haven in Southern Oregon right now, so we’re gonna meet up with them there.”

“A safe haven?” Mabel asked, hope creeping into her voice.

“Yeah, McGucket didn’t know much about it, but they’re broadcasting their location over a ham radio. They’re claiming to be completely zombie free,” Pacifica said.

“That sounds a little too good to be true, if I’m being honest,” Candy said, “How do we know these people are legit?”

“You’re right Candy, they could be cannibals for all we know,” Pacifica said, her voice thick with sarcasm. Candy glared at her.

“That was a legitimate concern!”

“Mhmm. Totally,” Pacifica said, “But if it’ll make you feel better, we can call that other group? McGucket said they were pretty close, and he sent this email awhile ago. We can call ahead to see if they got there already?”

“That’s a good idea,” Candy said.

“Do you think McGucket told them about our prisoner?” Grenda asked.

“I don’t know,” Pacifica said, frowning, “Probably best not to mention it though.”

“Got it,” Grenda said, shifting in her seat as Pacifica dialed the number for the other group. “Do we know any names?”

“The girl whose phone we’re calling is named Tambry,” Pacifica said, switching the phone to speaker as it rang. “I don’t know anyone else’s name though.”

The phone clicked, “Hello? Please tell me you’re Dr. McGucket’s rescue team.”

“Only if you’re Tambry,” Pacifica said, a slight grin on her face.

“ _Actually, she’s TambersisGrander-ow!_ ” said another voice.

“Shut up Nate!” the first voice said. “Sorry about that, but yes, I’m Tambry.”

 

#### SCAPPOOSE CREEK INN, SCAPPOOSE, OREGON

#### 3 DAYS BEFORE THE END OF THE WORLD

“More coffee?” Bill looked up at the perky woman who was running the breakfast portion of the Bed & Breakfast. Her grin was a textbook customer service smile, and her hair was dyed a bright pink that completely clashed with the sunny uniform that was standard for the inn.

Bill nodded, “Thank you…?”

“Priscilla,” she answered, “But because that’s super lame, you can call me Prisca.”

“Nice to meet ya,” Bill answered, “And if it makes you feel better, my name is Bill, which is significantly more lame than Priscilla.”

Prisca snorted. “It doesn’t, but thanks for trying.”

Her smile was much more genuine now, but it faded when Bill picked up his newspaper. “Ain’t it just awful what’s happening in Portland?”

“I suppose,” Bill said, turning back to the front page. The picture was grainy, it’d been pulled from the news footage that had been released from the quarantine riot yesterday, but it was still fairly horrifying to see people attacking each other that way. “You don’t really think it’s zombies though, do you?”

Prisca scoffed, “Not for a second. Way I figure it, the journalists don’t actually know what’s happening and were looking for a way to spike their ratings.”

“Wouldn’t a city wide quarantine already do that?” Bill asked, a ghost of a smile on his face.

“Maybe,” Prisca said, “But nothing gets views like zombies.”

“You make a fair argument,” Bill said. “Still, _something’s_ happening. Should I be worried about it spreading here?”

“You know, if Scappoose was even slightly more interesting, I would say yes,” Prisca said, “But as it stands now, our biggest attraction is a Fred Meyer.”

Bill laughed, “Gotta love small towns.”

“Speaking of,” Prisca’s eyes sparkled with curiosity, and Bill sensed a trap, “What brings you to our little piece of nowhere?”

“Honestly? I just needed to get out of the city for a bit,” Bill said, “Been under too much stress, figured taking a few weeks off to visit nowhere would help. Good thing I left when I did, huh? If I’d waited a day longer I’da been stuck in that quarantine too.”

“Guess you’re pretty lucky then,” she said. “Hey, so I gotta get back to work, but if you wanted, we could meet up after breakfast and I could show you around? Scappoose is small, but we’ve got some real pretty spots if you don’t mind hiking a bit.”

“I’d like that,” Bill said, smiling as she walked off to fill more coffee cups.

 

#### ELLENSBURG, WASHINGTON

“Over here, this one’s got a fence,” Bill said, leading the way towards the most easily defendable house in the neighborhood.

“Are we seriously about to break into a house right now?” Dipper asked. Bill had never met someone so nervous about crimes.

“Kid, we were literally discussing grand theft auto on the way here. That’s a capital crime you know. Breaking and entering is only a felony,” Bill said. Instead of being reassured though, the comment only seemed to make Dipper _more_ nervous.

“What if someone’s in there though?” Dipper asked, “What if they shoot us for breaking in?”

“Eh, pretty sure that’s only legal in Texas,” Bill said. “But hey, how about we ring the doorbell before we go in? Would that make you feel better?”

“Not really,” Dipper muttered, but he kept close to Bill as they made their way across the street.

True to his word, Bill rang the bell. They waited as it echoed through the house, but nothing happened. “Okay! No one’s home. Let’s find a proper entrance.”

“Wait, we’re not going in the front door?” Dipper scrambled to catch up as Bill started walking around the side of the house.

“Not if we can get in somewhere else,” Bill said, “It’s the most likely place for someone else to try and enter, I don’t wanna weaken it.”

“So then how are we getting in?” Dipper asked. Bill made his way around the shed in the back yard.

“I’m gonna find something in here to pry open a window with,” Bill said, “If I get it right, we can shut the window afterward.”

“Won’t that break the lock or something though?” Dipper asked.

“Probably, but zombies can’t open windows and it’ll be harder to see than if we did it to a door,” Bill said. He browsed through the tools, grinning at all the potential weapons. “I don’t know who lived here but they were awesome.”

“Is that a machete?” Dipper asked, “Why would anyone need a machete?”

“Well, obviously they were preparing for when survivors of the zombie apocalypse would raid their tool shed after losing all their weapons to roadside thieves,” Bill said, grabbing the machete, a crowbar, and a metal bat. “Before we leave we should properly raid this shed, but first we should really make sure that you don’t have a concussion.”

“Deal,” Dipper said. Dipper took the bat and they made their way back to the house, and Bill used the machete and the crowbar to pop open a bathroom window.

“Congrats, we’re officially felons,” Bill said. Dipper sighed as he crawled through the window.

“I hate you.”

“Love you too, Pine Tree.”

 

#### SCAPPOOSE, OREGON

#### 3 DAYS BEFORE THE END OF THE WORLD

“Oh my god, please tell me we’re almost there,” Bill said, “If we’re not, I’m going to die.”

Prisca threw her head back and actually _cackled_. “Rats, you’ve discovered my clever plan.”

“I should have known your kindness was too good to be true.”

“I’m shocked you’re only just now realizing that,” Prisca said, “But, we’re almost to the top.”

“Oh good,” Bill said, “I was starting to worry that your ‘little hike’ up a fucking mountain would never end.”

Prisca snorted, “It’s not a _mountain_. Just a bit of a hill.”

“You’re a dirty liar.”

“Maybe,” Prisca said, coming to a stop just ahead of him, “But you gotta admit, the view is definitely worth it.”

Bill pulled to a stop next to her, and okay, yeah, it was a really pretty outlook. They could see the whole town laid out below them, and the forest beyond too. It was gorgeous. “Woah.”

“Yeah,” Prisca said, “This is the most peaceful spot in town.”

“Alright, I’ll forgive you for attempting to murder me with physical activity,” Bill said.

She scoffed, “Ever consider that you’re just out of shape?”

“Har har,” Bill said.

“Ready to head back, then?” Prisca said.

Bill turned to the hill below them, it was incredibly steep. “You’ll carry my body back if I fall and break my neck, right?”

“Nope,” Prisca said, carefully leading the way back down the cliffside. “I’ll skip town and pretend I never knew you. Can’t risk getting arrested for manslaughter, you understand.”

“You wound me,” Bill said, “A true friend would at least dig a shallow grave.”

“And ruin my manicure?” Prisca was aghast, “Never.”

“Alright, I see where your loyalties truly lie,” Bill said. They kept up their banter as they walked, and the descent was certainly easier than the climb up had been. They ended up making it back to town in time for a late lunch.

“What’s the best place to get lunch around here?” Bill asked.

“Depends,” Prisca said, “Do you want real lunch, or do you want pie?”

“You know, I’d originally wanted real lunch, but now I’m thinking pie,” Bill answered. “Lead the way?”

“Gladly,” Prisca said. They made their way through town, but something seemed off.

“Hey, is it always so quiet around here?” Bill asked.

“Uhh, well it’s a pretty quiet town, Bill,” Prisca said, turning back with a smirk. “Wait, don’t tell me. You bought into the hype and you’re secretly afraid of zombies.”

“What can I say, my brain’s so amazing that it attracts undead monsters from miles around,” Bill answered.

Prisca scoffed, “Uh huh, sure Bill.”

They made it to the diner, and Bill figured out where everyone had gone. The place was filled with people.

“Is something big going down?” Bill asked as they slipped inside and claimed a booth in the corner.

“Xander makes the best pie ever,” Prisca explained, “And he always makes fresh ones after lunch.”

“Now I understand everything,” Bill said.

“Stay here, I’m gonna go order,” she said, “You got a preference on flavor?”

“Whichever one tastes best,” he said. Prisca grinned and made her way to the counter, and Bill took in the rest of the patrons. Most of the people were pretty average, but there was a group of guys in the corner that looked interesting. And by interesting, Bill meant that one of them looked like he was dying.

Prisca came back with two slices of apple pie, and Bill gestured to the men on the other side of the diner. “He okay?”

Prisca frowned at the man in question as she took her seat. “Hrmmm. I dunno,” Her eyes lit up with mischief. “Maybe he’s a zombie!”

“You’re never gonna let that go, are you?” Bill asked.

“Nope!” she answered, “Now eat your pie, it’s delicious.”

Bill dug in and found that she was correct, but he couldn’t stop focusing on the man. He looked awful, and he seemed to be getting worse. When he started coughing so hard that he fell out of his chair, Bill started getting really concerned.

“Hector?” his friends jumped out of their seats, trying to help him off the ground. “Hey, somebody call an ambulance! He’s not breathing!”

“Oh god,” Prisca said, rising from her seat. “We have to help them.”

Bill watched as, seemingly in slow motion, Hector jumped up and started attacking his friends. The diner erupted into screaming, and Bill felt cold.

Bill grabbed Prisca’s arm, and started trying to pull her out of the diner, “Prisca, we need to go.”

“What? No, we can’t just-”

“There’s nothing we can do, we just have to get out of here,” Bill said. Hector’s friends, who had previously been seemingly dead, jolted upright and joined in the attack, throats still bloody from where Hector had bitten them. “We need to go, now!”

Prisca let Bill pull her out of the diner, and he started running with no real direction in mind.

“Where are we going?” Prisca asked.

“I don’t know, just away,” Bill said, “We need to get somewhere safe.”

Bill spotted the inn and almost ran for the building, but then he noticed another...zombie, coming around the corner of the building. It growled when it saw them, then started running towards them. Bill swore and pulled Prisca in the opposite direction.

“Wait, I know where we can go!” Prisca said, tugging Bill down a side street. “My brother doesn’t live too far from here.”

Bill followed Prisca through town, trying to ignore the screams and growls that seemed to be coming from every direction. Things were quieter when they got out of the town proper and into the more residential areas, but they didn’t slow down until they reached a big blue house with an old, beat up work truck in the driveway. Prisca grabbed a key from under a rock in the front garden, and then they were inside, locking the door behind them, heaving as they caught their breath.

“I can’t...believe...that there are actually fucking zombies in Oregon,” Prisca said, slowly getting her breath back. “This is such...bullshit.”

Bill gave a dry laugh, “Guess those reporters weren’t so crazy after all.”

Prisca scoffed, “Yeah, whatever. Let’s just find Kyle and get the hell outta town.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Prisca led the way through the house, frowning as they went through more and more empty rooms. “Kyle? It’s Prisca. Where the fuck are you?”

They heard scuffling upstairs, and Prisca sighed. “I can hear you, dummy!”

Prisca led Bill upstairs, and then down the hall. “Hey! We need to go, the town’s being overrun with zombies!”

Prisca pushed open the door at the end of the hall without knocking, revealing a short, scraggly man with headphones over his ears. He was standing over a workbench, though Bill couldn’t tell what he was working on. He didn’t seem to have heard them, but Bill frowned. Something seemed off about the guy, and there was a bloody rag tied around his arm.

“Oh my god, Kyle! Pull off the headphones already! You live alone, why do you even use those damn things!” Kyle must have finally heard her, because he finally turned around. But he snarled when he saw them. Prisca froze. “Oh god, Kyle.”

Kyle bolted towards them, and Bill pulled Prisca back as he slammed the door. He wasn’t quick enough though, and Kyle got his arm in the gap before Bill could shut it all the way. “Shit, Prisca, we gotta push him back into the room!”

Prisca was still frozen behind him, horror written across her face. “Prisca! I need your help here!”

Prisca seemed to shake off her shock, and dashed into another room. She came back with a toilet plunger, and started using it to push Kyle back. Kyle pulled the plunger from her, and Prisca screamed when he grabbed her arm. Bill kicked Kyle back into the room, forcing him to let go of Prisca, and then slammed the door. Kyle rammed himself into the door, but it seemed like it would hold long enough for them to get away.

“Prisca, I’m so sorry,” Bill said, “But we gotta go. Do you know where Kyle kept the keys to his truck?”

“In the kitchen,” she answered, voice shaky. Bill made his way back downstairs, and he could hear Prisca following him, though much more slowly. Bill glanced around the kitchen until he found the key rack, then grabbed the car keys.

“Is there anything you wanna grab before we go?” Bill asked, turning back to see Prisca in the doorway to the kitchen. She looked terrified.

“Bill I…” her voice broke, and she held out her arm. There was a bloody bite taken out of her wrist, and Bill felt his stomach drop. “I, I’m gonna turn into one of those things, aren’t I?”

“Prisca…” Bill didn’t know what to say.

“Bill, please,” she said, “I can’t become one of those things. You have to kill me.”

Bill’s eyes widened. That was _not_ what he expected her to say, and he could feel his calm slipping into panic.

“Please, I… I wanna die as me.”

“Prisca, I-”

“Bill please!”

 

#### ELLENSBURG, WASHINGTON

“Bill! Wake up!”

Bill’s eyes snapped open, but he was still panicking. Something was on top of him, and he’d flipped them around and pinned his attacker before he could even remember where he was.

“Hey! Bill, let me go!”

Bill looked down to see Dipper pinned beneath him, and his memories came flooding back to him. They were safe. He was in Ellensburg. They’d found a house to crash in and Dipper had taken first watch. It had only been a dream. Bill let his hold go slack, and started trying to steady his breathing. “Sorry. Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to surprise sleeping people?”

“You were having a nightmare,” Dipper said, frowning.

“All the more reason to have let me keep sleeping,” Bill said, rolling off Dipper and checking the time. “It’s late anyhow, go to sleep, I’ll keep watch.”

“Are you okay?” Dipper asked. Bill rolled his eyes.

“If you’re worried about me falling asleep, don’t. I’m perfectly well rested and this place has a coffeepot anyway,” he answered, leaning over the side of the bed and grabbing his boots. He paused when Dipper grabbed his shoulder; the kid was still frowning, but it seemed more out of concern than annoyance.

“I’m worried because you were shouting in your sleep, Bill,” Dipper said.

“Well don’t,” Bill said, turning back to his boots. “It was just a bad dream.”

“Who’s Prisca?” Dipper asked. Bill turned back to him, and Dipper looked like he was instantly regretting the question. “Sorry, you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to, it’s just that you kept saying Prisca, and it kinda sounded like a name, but it’s something from a nightmare I guess, so you probably don’t wanna-”

“Prisca was one of the first people I lost to this apocalypse thing,” Bill said, and Dipper fell silent instantaneously. “She was working at this Bed and Breakfast I was staying at in Oregon, and we’d hit it off. We were sorta friends, I guess, and she shared my sense of humor. Then the town got hit, there were only a few zombies to start out with, but nobody knew what was happening, and most people had kinda blown off the claims of zombies, so it spread like wildfire.

“Prisca and I were gonna run, her brother had a truck and we were gonna head North. But when we got to the brother, he was already turned. He got Prisca and…” Bill trailed off. He hated how that day had gone. Dipper was smart enough to fill in the blanks, he didn’t need to know how it had really gone down. “Anyway, I went North on my own, made it to Seattle and got sucked into the military’s bullshit Tacoma Dome plan, and you know the story from there.”

Bill wasn’t sure what he expected from the kid, but getting a hug wasn’t one of the anticipated reactions. “I’m so sorry you had to do that.”

Bill slowly returned the hug. “Thanks, I guess?” Bill Cipher was not a hugger. This was awkward. How long was this going to last?

Dipper seemed to realize how awkward this was, because he pulled back, but he was very serious when he looked at Bill. “Are you sure you don’t wanna try and sleep some more?”

“I’m sure kid,” Bill said, “I won’t be able to get back to sleep after that anyway, so you might as well get some shut eye.”

“I could stay up with you,” Dipper offered. “I bet we could find a deck of cards or something around here.” Dipper tried to fight of a yawn, but he failed, and Bill scoffed.

“You’d never stay awake long enough for me to finish kicking your ass,” Bill said. “Go to sleep Dipper.”

Dipper frowned, but then he yawned again, and he relented. “Alright. Wake me up if there’s any sign of trouble.”

“Will do, kid,” Bill said, making his way out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. He definitely needed coffee.

He got the coffee started, working mechanically. It wasn’t much of a distraction, and for a moment he considered waking Dipper back up to keep him company. But the kid needed sleep, and Bill wasn’t about to deprive him of that just because of a bad dream. Memory. Whatever.

The coffee stopped, and Bill grabbed a cup and attempted to wake up. He burned his mouth when he took a sip, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He just wanted to stop thinking.

But every time he closed his eyes he saw her. Not smiling though, or laughing, or in any state she may have wanted to be remembered in. He saw her crying, terrified, begging him to end her.

 

#### SCAPPOOSE, OREGON

#### 3  DAYS BEFORE THE END OF THE WORLD

“Bill, please!”

He was frozen. All his life, he’d always had something to say, but right now he just couldn’t think of the words. “Prisca, I...I can’t.”

“Bill,” whatever she was going to say was lost in a fit of coughing, and when she pulled her hand away it was bloody. He made the mistake of looking at her face, her eyes were pleading with him, begging him to do this one thing.

“I’m sorry,” he said, taking a hesitant step towards her. Prisca collapsed in another fit of coughing, but he couldn’t tell if it was the sickness or the despair that was taking her strength.

“You don’t have to be sorry, just do it,” Prisca said, “Please.”

And Bill realized she didn’t understand. She thought he was apologizing because he was going to kill her. “Prisca, I can’t. I can’t kill you, and I can’t watch you die either.”

He could see the realization in her eyes, followed by the renewed fear, "Bill. Bill don't. Don't you dare leave me."

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Bill-" her pleas were lost to another coughing fit, and Bill used the moment to slip past her, out of the kitchen and out to the front door. “Bill, please! You can’t just leave me here!”

He paused with his hand on the doorknob. He knew if he walked out this door he’d regret it. But he also couldn’t go back and finish her off, and he couldn’t stay and watch her turn into one of those things either.

He opened the door.

 

#### NORTHWEST COMPANY SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FACILITY, OREGON

Melody was quiet when she wasn’t fighting with Ford. It was one of the first things that Carla noticed when she’d started helping with the garden. That angry, passionate woman who could stare down Stanford and dismantle his every protest seemed like a completely different person than the somber woman who was tending to the carrots and tomatoes.

She’d stopped crying at this point, Carla figured she didn’t really have any tears left, but there was still a sadness in her eyes that left Carla with a pit of guilt where her heart used to be. She may have been against human testing, but she’d still helped to create this virus, and she hadn’t exactly done much to try and stop it.

Now there was nothing she _could_ do. All the research she and Ford had done was gone, all their calculations and formulas and simulations were lost. They’d used the monitors to recover what they could, they’d wracked their brains for everything they could remember, but it wasn’t enough. Ford had refused to give up, still pouring over his research, trying to find a solution to a puzzle that was just missing too many pieces to be solved. Carla didn’t know how he could stand to keep working in circles, but she also dreaded what he would do if he ever gave up.

“You’re gonna drown the corn if you keep that up,” Melody said, and Carla jerked back to alertness, then steadied the watering can. She frowned at the corn pot, it was more mud than soil right now.

“Sorry, I just got lost in thought,” Carla said, “Is it gonna be okay?”

Melody pressed her hands into the soil, pushing down. “Yes, I’ll just have to drain the pot a bit. What’s on your mind?”

Carla sighed. “Everything. Ford and I have hit something of a wall with the search for the cure. We’ve recreated everything we could, but we just don’t have enough information. We don’t have anything to test, or case studies to reference, or formulas to try. We’re just...stuck.”

Melody nodded, “I get it. Not being able to test a hypothesis is the most frustrating thing in the world for a scientist. I remember in grad school when my lab was my parents’ garage, I couldn’t run half the experiments I was coming up with. It was the most frustrated I’ve ever been. Knowing that everything you could need is just two floors below you and still not being able to get it must be even worse.”

“I just feel so useless,” Carla sighed, leaning against the counter where they’d set up their makeshift garden.

“You’re not useless,” Melody placed a hand on her shoulder. “You’ve just finished everything you can do right now. Once the girls get here and shut off the lock down though you’ll have more resources, and you’ll be able to run as many tests as you need to to figure out how to stop this.”

“What if we can’t?” Carla asked. “What if even when we’ve got a proper lab and equipment and samples we still can’t figure out where we went wrong? What happens then?”

“I don’t know,” Melody said, “But I also think it’s a little too early to be worrying about that. Focus on what you can do today, not what may or may not become a problem tomorrow. Especially since it’s not something fretting could help you overcome.”

Carla gave Melody a half smile. “You give pretty good advice. I think you may have missed your calling as a life coach.”

“Eh, I’d rather be the one to stop world hunger than the one who inspired someone else to do it,” Melody said, giving her own little smile, then she turned back to the plants. “In the meantime though I need to save this cornstalk. Some silly chemist just tried to drown it.”

“Well it’s a good thing there’s a genius botanist here to play lifeguard then,” Carla said. “Is there anything else I can help you with or have I done enough?”

“You can try and track down some rags,” Melody said, “This is probably going to get pretty messy.”

“I somehow doubt that Fiddleford has anything even remotely resembling a cleaning rag, but I’ll see what I can find,” Carla said, turning to leave the kitchen, but she paused at the door. “Thanks Melody.”

“Always happy to help, Carla,” Melody said.

 

#### I-5 S, OREGON

Tambry was going to kill Nate.

He’d been driving her up a wall all day, and she was just one bad joke away from stabbing him to death. Or at least introducing him to her pepper spray.

“Tambry.”

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I’m going to say, how can you just shoot me down like that?”

She sighed. “What?”

“Do you wanna hear a knock knock joke?”

“No.”

“Nate, please stop baiting Tambry,” Wendy said.

“But it’s the only thing that isn’t boring,” Nate said. “Except for baiting Thompson, but he’s driving, so, knock-knock!”

Wendy sighed. Tambry glared out the window and resolutely ignored Nate.

“Tambry, you gotta say who’s there,” Nate said, “Let’s try again. Knock-knock!”

Tambry tried to keep ignoring him, she really did, but she knew the only way he was going to stop saying knock-knock was if she answered him. She hated knock-knock jokes.

“Knock-knock. Knock-knock. Knock-”

“Who’s there!” she snapped, whirling on Nate with a glare. He grinned, and opened his mouth to speak, only to be cut off by Tambry’s phone ringing again. She dug the phone out of her bag, frowning when she saw a California number. She answered it anyway, hadn’t McGucket said that his team was coming from the south? Tambry switched to speakerphone as she answered the call.

“Hello? Please tell me you’re Dr. McGucket’s rescue team.”

 _“_ Only if you’re Tambry,” a girl answered, Tambry could hear the grin in her voice.

“Actually, she’s TambersisGrander-ow _!_ ” Nate rubbed his arm where Tambry had punched him.

“Shut up Nate!” Tambry said, then turned back to the phone. “Sorry about that, but yes, I’m Tambry.”

“Awesome!” the voice that spoke this time was much deeper, the girl who had called hadn’t sounded very intimidating, but maybe this team was military after all.

“So you guys are really gonna get Dr. McGucket out of...wherever it is he’s stuck?” Wendy asked.

“We’re going to try,” said the girl. “How big is your group?”

“There are five of us,” Wendy answered. “I’m Wendy, you know Tambry, you may have heard Nate earlier, then there’s Robbie and Thompson. What about you guys?”

“There are four of us,” the girl answered, “I’m Pacifica.”

“Mabel!”

“Candy.”

“Grenda!”

“So you guys are heading to Gravity Falls, right?” Pacifica asked.

“Yeah, we’re on I-5 now, should be getting there pretty soon, actually. What about you guys?” Wendy answered.

“We started in LA, but we had to take a bit of a detour through Nevada because of blockades.” Mabel said, “We just crossed back into California.”

“We were hoping you all could tell us a bit about Gravity Falls,” Candy said, “McGucket didn’t really give us much to go on, past you all being on your way there.”

“Unfortunately we don’t know too much either,” Wendy said, “We only got to hear a bit of the broadcast. From what I heard though, it kinda seemed like it was gonna be an attempt at recreating society.”

“Stricter though,” Nate chimed in. “Their announcer didn’t give any examples, but he mentioned that people who entered would have to follow their rules. Not really sure what he meant by that, could just be zombie related, but we can’t rule out that this guy is gonna be a fun killer.”

“Oh yes,” Pacifica said, “Because the apocalypse is _so_ much fun.”

“I like her,” Robbie said, as Nate slumped in his seat and pouted.

“I don’t know about fun killing, but that still sounds pretty ominous to me,” Candy said, “This whole thing sounds too good to be true.”

“Ignore her, she thinks everything is a bad idea,” Pacifica said, “Though...keep us posted on what it’s like? If you can, at least.”

“Not a problem,” Wendy said. “Anything else?”

“Animals can get zombified too,” Grenda said, “So, just, be aware of that, I guess.”

Tambry frowned, “That’s horrifying, but thanks for the heads up.”

“Wait, what? Are you telling me we’re gonna have to deal with zombie squirrels or some shit?” Nate said, “I don’t think we could make it against an army of zombie squirrels.”

“You probably don’t need to worry about squirrels,” Pacifica said, “They’re pretty hard to catch, and they’re small enough that I don’t think they’d be getting back up if a human bit them. But we found this out after a run in with a zombie pig, and honestly? He was more dangerous than any human zombie we’ve come up against so far, and I could easily see that happening with dogs or anything similar. So I would recommend avoiding pet shops or zoos or farms or any place where you might find a bunch of animals.”

“Noted,” Wendy said, “Any other horrifying news you’d like to drop on us?”

“Nope, I think that about covers it,” Candy said.

“Er, I had a request,” Mabel said. “My brother was up in Seattle when...I just, I can’t get in contact with him, and I’m worried, and I know you guys aren’t really near Seattle, but with the radio broadcast I was hoping maybe he’d hear it and turn up in Gravity Falls too, ya know?”

“And you want to know if we can keep an eye for him, right?” Wendy said, a bittersweet smile on her face. “We’d be happy to, just give us a description.”

“Right!” Mabel said, excitement filling her voice. “His name is Dipper, and he’s got brown eyes and brown hair but he usually wears a hat with a pine tree on it because he’s got a birthmark on his forehead shaped like the Big Dipper, that’s where he got his nickname. He’s really skinny, and a total nerd, but he’s really smart. Er, I could probably text you a picture of him, that might be a better idea.”

“Probably, you were talking pretty fast there,” Wendy said. “But we’ll be sure to keep an eye out for him.”

“Oh thank you! Thank you so much!” Mabel said. “If there’s anyone you want us to look out for, we’d be happy to do that too!”

“There is a couple of lumberjacks we’re trying to find,” Tambry said, “I’ll text you their pictures as soon as I can, but they’re all redheads.”

“Guys, I think we’re here,” Thompson said, slowing the car as they neared a large wall in the middle of the road. It was made of all sorts of odds and ends, trucks and wood and ACME barricades that had probably been stolen from the military’s abandoned attempts at stopping the spread. There were men with guns gathered around the apparent gate, they didn’t really look like soldiers, but they were certainly intimidating.

“Well there go any doubts about the place still being up and running,” Nate said.

“So it’s really safe then?” Pacifica asked. “It really exists?”

“Looks like it,” Tambry said, “I’ll call you guys back when I get inside, but for now I guess this is goodbye.”

“Alright. Hopefully we’ll hear from you soon,” Pacifica said. The line clicked when she hung up, and Tambry slipped her phone into her bag as Thompson slowly approached the gate. One of the men jogged up to meet them, and Thompson rolled the window down to greet him.

“Well howdy folks! Welcome to Gravity Falls!” He said, grinning from ear to ear. Tambry took back her earlier assessment about them being intimidating. “Y’all are here ‘cause of the radio broadcast, right?”

“Er, yes sir,” Thompson said.

“Aw, no need to be so formal folks, y’all just call me Tyler,” he said, shifting the M16 that was slung over his shoulder so that he could shake Thompson’s hand. “Now then, give us just a sec to open the outer gate, then just drive forward to the yellow line, and we’ll get you checked in.”

“Sorry if this was answered in the broadcast, we only heard part of it, but what do you mean checked in?” Wendy asked.

“Oh, no worries Miss, we didn’t wanna clog the broadcast with too much information, so it wasn’t even mentioned,” Tyler said, signaling the other soldiers. “But I just mean that we’re gonna check you folks over for bites, and make sure you register your weapons, and turn in any contraband.”

The gate started to slide open, revealing enough space to park a bus and a second gate. Tyler drew away as Thompson drove forward to the yellow line, then the gate slid shut behind them.

Tyler motioned for them to get out of the car, and they did so, but Tambry was suddenly nervous. “What do you define as contraband, exactly?”

“Drugs, zombies, anything that’s too dangerous to have in town,” Tyler said, “We get a lot of jumpy folks, and it’s best if they don’t have nothing they could cause trouble with. We won’t disarm y’all completely, these are dangerous times after all, even in a haven like this, but there’s a big difference between letting people carry around a bat or a knife and letting people carry around a semi-automatic inside the town borders.”

“Makes sense,” Tambry said. “I don’t think we’ve got anything that falls into the overkill territory though.”

“Most folks don’t, but for everyone’s safety we’ll have to search your vehicle and your bags before we let you in. You gotta register any weapons you wanna take inside though, so it’d speed things up if y’all pulled those out for us. Anything you folks can’t keep will be tagged and kept up here at the guard station, we’ll keep it safe until you leave, if you ever decide to,” Tyler said. “When you’re finished pulling out the weapons though, just step into that building there and we’ll have our doctors look ya over for bites.”

“Understood,” Thompson said, helping to line up their assortment of knives, fireworks, and the other weapons. Wendy seemed reluctant to part with her hatchet, but she laid it down with everything else anyway.

Thompson was the first to enter the building, but the others were quick to follow. The exam was a little uncomfortable, but it wasn’t any more invasive than a check up with her regular doctor had ever been, and Tambry understood its necessity. When they exited the building Tyler had a clipboard and pen ready for them.

“Y’all just go ahead and put your names down next to the weapons you’ll be carrying, everything is good to go through ‘cept for the fireworks, we can’t risk having those go off inside the town,” Tyler said, passing the clipboard around between them.

“That’s fair,” Nate said, “Do I need like, a return receipt to get those back later?”

“Yep! Here ya go,” Tyler passed him a small strip of paper. “Just give this to whoever’s in the your guard station on your way out, like you were collecting a coat!”

“Right,” Nate said, “I’ve totally been somewhere fancy enough to have a coat collector, and I’ve totally done that before.”

Tambry rolled her eyes, but Tyler seemed oblivious to the way his instructions were received. “Y’all can go ahead and load back up in your van, we’re gonna open up the inner gate and then the mayor’ll meet you on the other side and get you settled in. You folks have a nice day, ya hear!”

“You too,” Wendy said, but she only seemed to be half paying attention to Tyler as she scanned the guard station on her way back into the car.

The gate opened, revealing a little town and a giant sign welcoming them to Gravity Falls. Thompson drove them inside, and the gate started to close again as soon as they passed it. It looked like a pretty normal town, except for the giant wall that circled everything. There was a little building to the left called Greasy’s Diner, and to the right was what looked like an old car dealership. They could see houses scattered around, and enough buildings to resemble something like a downtown area. It was a quaint little town, though not the kind of place Tambry could ever picture herself wanting to visit outside of present circumstances.

“So where are we supposed to go?” Thompson asked, “Or should we just wait for this mayor guy to show up?”

“Maybe we could stop in that diner?” Nate asked, “We haven’t really had lunch yet.”

“I’m not sure I wanna eat at a place called Greasy’s,” Tambry said, “Sounds kinda gross.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Nate said.

Tambry might have responded, but then a golf cart came around the corner, stopping in front of the van and cutting them off. A young man stepped out of the golf cart and waved to them, a big smile on his face, then he gestured for Thompson to turn into the old car lot.

“That guy can’t seriously be the mayor,” Nate said as Thompson turned the car to follow instructions. “He can’t be much older than us.”

“I’d say he’s even younger,” Wendy said, “But if he founded this place, I could see him becoming mayor too. People love a hero, and this is definitely the time for one.”

Thompson parked the car, and they got out to meet the young man who was walking towards them. Tambry tried to keep her face neutral, but as the guy got closer it was difficult. He was wearing a powder blue suit, and his hair was styled into the most ridiculous pompadour Tambry had ever seen. He looked more like a roadside attraction than a mayor.

“Well howdy there folks!” he said, reaching out to shake their hands. He had a Texas accent, but it sounded kind of fake, and his voice was annoyingly high. “Welcome to Gravity Falls! I’m your mayor, but y’all can call me Lil’ Gideon, everyone does!”

He laughed, but Tambry wasn’t really sure what was supposed to be funny. She smiled to be polite, but Gideon continued as if he didn’t notice their quietness. “Now y’all can leave your car in the lot for now, I’m gonna give you a quick tour of the town and lay down the rules, then I’ll show you folks to your accommodations. So long as you follow the rules and keep outta trouble, I promise you’ll have a real great time in our fair little town. Now then, follow lil’ ole me and we’ll get you settled in no time!”

Gideon led the way back to the golf cart with a giggle, and Tambry reluctantly followed, the others behind her. She could only pray that the weird cheeriness that everyone seemed to possess here wasn’t contagious. She didn’t think she could handle smiling that much on a regular basis. Weirdos.

 

**Song for this chapter: Once And for All by The Belleville Outfit**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS Shoutout to Anna (who may or may not ever actually get around to reading this fic) for letting me borrow her hometown for Bill's backstory! 
> 
> And kudos to all of you who figured out that all the named inhabitants of Scappoose are Bill's demon friends! I may bring in some of the others, assuming I can think up names for them...


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as I type this note, I have ten minutes to midnight, which means I'm probably not going to get this up on time, but only via technicality.
> 
> School sucks is the only excuse I have to give for waiting until the night of September 30th to finish this chapter. That's also the reason that Flint has not had time to look through the chapter (at least not all of it), so there's a slight chance of subscribers getting notified when I go back and fix all the typos Flint will inevitably find when he goes through this.

#### GRAVITY FALLS, OREGON

Gravity Falls wasn’t what Robbie had expected it would be, but he found himself liking it anyway.

“Now these buildings here have stores on the first floor, but the spaces above have been converted into apartments,” Gideon said. He was sickeningly cheerful, and his hair was pretty much the stupidest thing anyone had ever put on their head, but Robbie couldn’t deny that he’d set up a pretty cool place. “All our stores operate on a bartering system, but if you’ve got cash that’ll be accepted too. If you’re short on cash or tradable goods though, as most people are after fleeing their homes, we do have plenty of jobs available. Mostly manual labor, nothing glamorous, though we’re always looking for people willing to guard the wall and venture out on scavenging missions.”

“What are you scavenging for?” Wendy asked. She hadn’t stopped frowning since they got here, though Robbie had no idea why.

“Oh, anything that’d be useful really. Batteries, medicine, clothing, food, ammunition, anything we either can’t make ourselves or never have enough of, really. Our scavengers also find other survivors, too, at least on occasion,” Gideon said, smiling back at her as if he didn’t notice her complete and utter lack of enthusiasm.

The golf cart rumbled on, and Gideon talked about everything that could be found in the little town. They even had a lake, which was apparently safe to swim in and fish from. There were boats scattered across the water, and families down on the beach. It had been a long time since Robbie had seen children playing, and it brought back a hope that he hadn’t had since the efforts to evacuate Portland were halted. A hope that there was still a future for the world, even if they had to keep living with the zombies in it.

Gideon brought them back to the edge of town, but he didn’t stop at the dealership. “Now I’m sure you folks are tired, and I know you’re itching to get settled in, but I hope you’d consider being my lunch guests first?” Gideon stopped in front of a quaint blue and white house that was on the other side of the dealership. It had a wrought iron gate with flowers winding through the bars, and there was a water fountain nestled in the garden. It was quite idyllic, and probably could have been on the cover of some magazine if not for the giant wall that towered over it and cut through the yard.

Gideon led the way into the house, leaving Robbie and his friends to trail awkwardly behind.

“You better not break anything, Nate,” Tambry said, and Nate gave her an indignant glare. The house was just as beautiful inside as it was outside, though maybe a little on the kitschy side. Though as Robbie took in the lace doilies he couldn’t help but be reminded of his own home, and he felt a pang of worry for his parents. He hoped they were alright.

They made their way to the kitchen, where an older woman was sweeping the same spot on the floor over and over. It didn’t look dirty to Robbie, but she didn’t seem to care. She just stared off into space, sweeping without seeing them.

“Good evening, Mother,” Gideon said, smiling at her sadly, “These folks just came to Gravity Falls, and I thought I’d invite them to lunch.”

Mrs. Gleeful said nothing, as if the words didn’t even register with her. Gideon sighed, turning to the others with a dejected look. “I’m sorry about her, she’s just...not all there anymore. When the infected got Poppa she just...shut down.”

Mrs. Gleeful dropped the broom, then walked into the living room. Gideon sighed as he picked it up. “I do my best to look after her, but I worry that she might never get better.”

Robbie could hear a vacuum start up in the living room. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you,” Gideon said, then shook his head, and his smile slid back into place. “Well, I suppose that’s enough of my sob story. How about I get you folks some food instead?”

“That’d be wonderful,” Thompson said, smiling. “Thank you. Not just for the meal, for all of this. This place is amazing.”

“No need to thank me,” Gideon said, “I’m just doing what I can to help the people of our great nation in this time of tragedy. I’ve never been one to sit idly by while others suffered, I wasn’t about to change my ways now.”

Lunch was simple, just bread and beans, but that didn’t matter. It had felt like ages since Robbie had been able to let his guard down, and even longer since he’d actually felt safe somewhere.

“So how’d you get this place set up so quickly? It’s all pretty elaborate.” Wendy asked. She seemed to be shooting for nonchalance, and to Gideon she probably managed it, but Robbie could see the line of tension in her shoulders. He wondered what had her so wound up. Maybe she was anxious to see if her family had made it here?

Gideon’s smile dimmed at the question. “Well, Gravity Falls is my home town, so I know this place inside and out just from growing up here. But Poppa and I were up in Portland when it all started, looking at colleges and all. We got caught in the quarantine, but we were in a hotel on the edge of the city and therefore were some of the first folks who were gonna get checked out by the CDC. We were on our way out when the shoutin’ started. The CDC had stopped some guy from going through and his family were upset, I think. Then the guy started coughing, and shaking, and the doctors started rushing around, trying to save him. We couldn’t see much, but I remember them trying to restart his heart a few times. He came back, but he was one of those...things. I remember the noise he made, I wish I could forget it, and then it all went to hell in a handbasket.

“The guy, the infected...he just started attacking people, and there was so much screaming, it was only a matter of time before more of ‘em showed up. My dad and I started running, the military was too busy dealing with those things to bother stopping us. We didn’t know how it spread back then, didn’t know to be careful. There was a lady getting attacked, and we helped her, she had a car and was happy to let us use it. So we bandaged her arm and drove nonstop till we got back home. When we got here, we told everyone what was happening. They didn’t believe us at first, but then they saw the bite on that poor woman’s arm and suddenly they listened. The whole town got together, building the wall. I know the section by the road is pretty impressive, but it’s not like that all around. A lot of the sections in the woods are just fences that have been raised and fortified. It’s secure all the way ‘round, don’t worry, but it wouldn’t last forever if there was no one to defend it,” Gideon said, “I could never have created this place without the good people of Gravity Falls to protect it.”

“And the woman? If she was bit, she must have…” Nate trailed off, probably thinking of Lee again. Robbie hoped he didn’t start another fight.

Gideon nodded, and gave a sigh. “We’d been keeping her here. She was one of those who resisted the virus for awhile before turning, I don’t know if you’ve seen what happens when people turn?”

“We’ve seen it once, but it happened in less than an hour,” Wendy said.

“Ah. Well you probably didn’t see the worst of the symptoms then. I don’t know what determines how fast people go, but the longer they stay alive the worse it gets. By the time she died she had a fever of 110 degrees, and she could barely stop coughing long enough to wipe the blood from her mouth. Poppa...he hadn’t wanted to leave her alone, so he stayed here to look after her while Mother and I helped with the building. We came home just after she turned, she had Poppa pinned and was tearing out his throat,” Gideon’s voice broke, and he gave them an apologetic look as he tried to regain his composure. “I’m sorry folks, I can just never bring myself to talk about the next part.”

“It’s alright, you don’t have to tell us about that,” Thompson said. Gideon gave him a ghost of a smile, then cleared his throat.

“Any how, after that we’d kinda figured out how it spread, and so we knew to edit our defenses to minimize the chance of a bite. We’re a pretty out of the way community, so we don’t get too many infected coming our way anyhow. Finishing up our defenses was simple enough, but we weren’t content to just ride out this mess. So I recorded the broadcast and sent it off over the ham radio. I figure as long as we’re here and we can give people hope we’ve got a duty to try and help as many folks as possible.”

“Well you’ve certainly given us some hope,” Thompson said. Gideon’s megawatt smile came back full force, and after that the conversation took a lighter turn. They finished lunch and Gideon led them back into town. Their assigned apartment was above a dance studio, but it wasn’t anything fancy. Two bedrooms, one and half bathrooms. The kitchen was empty of food, but Gideon assured them that someone would be by with their rations before dinner. There was also a large stack of papers on the counter, which were made up of the town rules and job offers that they could take on. Gideon left with a smile and a “don’t be strangers now, ya hear?”

Nate claimed a bedroom and collapsed for a nap, and Tambry went ahead and took the other for the two of them. Thompson chattered excitedly about how great everything here was, while Wendy ignored them all in favor of studying their new rulebook. Robbie was about to go to bed when one of the flyers caught his eye. They were looking for doctors. He pulled the flyer closer and smiled to himself.

This place wasn’t what he’d imagined for his future, but he was starting to think it might not be so bad to start a life here. The more he thought about it all, the more perfect the whole thing seemed. He grabbed the flyer and told the others he’d be back, then set out to find the local clinic.

After so long of never seeing anyone but the dead, it was kind of a trip to walk down a street and be met by nothing but smiling faces. Even before everything went to shit in Portland, nobody ever smiled at you when you passed them on the street. Robbie decided that he didn’t really mind the change.

 

#### CA-89 N, CALIFORNIA

Mabel knew, when she started her shift of driving, that she was still pretty out of it. But she needed to get out of her own head, so when Candy started getting highway hypnosis she was quick to volunteer.

It wasn’t until the engine started to sputter and die that she realized that she should have been paying more attention. The car rolled to a stop, and Mabel flinched as the others came to.

“What happened? Why are we stopping?” Candy asked, yawning as she woke from her nap.

“Well. You see,” Mabel began, “We are, uh, well.”

“Spit it out Mabes,” Pacifica said, eyebrow raised. Mabel sighed.

“I wasn’t paying attention and we’re out of gas,” Mabel said. “I’m sorry guys.”

“Well shit,” Candy said.

“Don’t suppose you were watching signs either then?” Pacifica asked. Mabel flinched again. She was a terrible apocalypse driver.

“Why would signs matter?” Grenda asked. “We should be looking for abandoned cars that we can syphon gas from.”

“Do you even know _how_ to syphon gas?” Pacifica asked incredulously.

“Do you not?” Candy asked. “I thought everyone knew how to do that.”

“ _Why_ would- you know what, no, I don’t even want to know why you two know how to do that,” Pacifica said, “I wanted to know about road signs because they would tell us which direction to start walking in to get to the nearest exit.”

“I’m sorry Paz,” Mabel said. This was her all fault. “If I’d just been able to focus…”

“Hey, Mabes, it’s okay,” Pacifica said, grabbing her hand. “I know you’re still grieving. We can figure this out.”

Mabel gave her a watery grin and squeezed her hand. “Thanks Paz.”

“Right, so, let’s pick a direction,” Pacifica said.

“A direction?” Candy said incredulously.

“A direction,” Pacifica affirmed. “Forward or backwards.”

Candy sighed. “If we go backwards we can grab a new car, fill it with gas, then drive it up here and either syphon the gas into the van or move our supplies into the new car. We’d lose time, but we’d keep our stuff. On the other hand, if we go forwards, we can grab a new car there and cut the backtracking. We’d still lose some time, but maybe not as much.”

“How far until we hit Oregon?” Grenda asked.

“I’m not sure,” Mabel said, “We haven’t switched to I-5 yet, but we’re not on 395 anymore either. We’re kinda just in the middle of Northern California. But...I’m pretty sure we passed Lassen National Park about a half hour ago?”

Candy pulled out a paper map she must have found at the rest stop, scanning it with a critical eye. “I think we’re on 89 then. Somewhere along here, we’re probably near Burney…”

“I don’t remember if I’ve seen signs for it or not,” Mabel said, guilt hitting her again.

“Which brings us back to pick a direction,” Pacifica said.

“I say forward,” Candy said, “If we haven’t passed Burney yet and we go back, there aren’t a lot of places to stop. We’d probably have to go all the way back to the park, and there are no guarantees that we can find gas there. Even if we have passed Burney, there looks like there’re a few more small towns past it. So if we go forward we’re almost certain to find something quickly.”

“Alright. Any objections?” Pacifica asked. Grenda shook her head, and Mabel mirrored her. It was her fault they were in this mess to begin with, so she wasn’t going to object to what the group wanted to do.

“Forward it is then,” Pacifica said. “Let’s grab weapons and any necessities that won’t slow us down too much. We’re probably not going to get to come back until this is over.”

“Don’t leave anything that you don’t want someone to steal,” Candy said, “The car will probably get looted before we see it again.”

“Lovely,” Mabel said, packing her bag hurriedly. She hated the apocalypse.

 

#### NORTHWEST COMPANY SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FACILITY, OREGON

_Fuck._

Fiddleford stared at the email, willing the words to change as a cold feeling spread through him.

_Fuck fuck fuck fuck._

“Fids? You okay?” Stan asked, coming to stand by him. Fiddleford hadn’t even noticed him coming in. Stan leaned in close, reading the email over his shoulder. “ _Fuck_.”

“We’re all going to die.” Fiddleford said.

“I’m sorry, what did you just say?” Melody called from the hall, frowning as she came into the room, Carla only a few steps behind her.

“I said we’re all going to die,” Fiddleford said, moving away from his desk and towards the monitors. “Pacifica just sent me an email, and-”

“Oh god, are the girls alright?” Carla asked.

“They’re fine,” Fiddleford said, “But they just learned that animals can contract the virus. Apparently they had to fight off a zombie piglet in Las Vegas.”

“And why does that mean we’re all going to die?” Melody asked, “Animals are smart, and they have better instincts than humans do. They’ll know to keep clear of zombies. Even if they didn’t, we’re in an underground lab that’s been put into lockdown mode, nothing is gonna be able to get in here.”

“I’m a bit more concerned with what may _already_ be here,” Fiddleford said, switching the monitors to show Lolph and Dundgren’s lab. It had been completely trashed since he’d last looked at it. There was broken machinery scattered throughout the room, as well as glass, paper, blood, and feathers. But what concerned Fiddleford wasn’t the mess in the lab, it was what was missing from it. “Shit.”

“What?” Carla asked, “What’s wrong Fiddleford?”

“The animals are gone,” he said, moving away from the monitors so the others could look. “Fuck. I don’t even know how many they had.”

“ _Fuck,_ ” Stan started pacing the room, muttering more swears under his breath.

Fiddleford scanned the cages and shattered atriums, trying to figure out how many animals there had been and which ones may have actually survived the bite. He could see a few corpses, animals that had been torn apart too quickly to come back, birds that had lost too much body mass in the initial bite. Some of the enclosures and cages had been torn open, others stood undamaged but empty. Likely many of them hadn’t had animals to start with, so there was no way to count enclosures and figure out the numbers that way.

“Can we rewind the footage and figure out which animals are loose that way?” Fiddleford jumped at the sound of Ford’s voice, when had he come in? But the suggestion was welcome.

He wound the footage back to before he’d set off the alarms, carefully trying to count the animals in the lab. There were plenty of mice, but their bodies were so small he didn’t think there’d be enough of them left after a bite to come back, and he recognized the colorful parakeets that were lying dead in the present footage. There was some kind of cat...or dog? He wasn’t really sure what it was, but it had stripes and lots of teeth, and it definitely wasn’t in the lab anymore. Also absent from present footage were three little creatures that looked like mini kangaroos, some kind of monkey, and what Fiddleford was 80% sure was a dodo bird.

“Right, so assuming these are the only animals they had, we have six probable zombie animals on the loose,” he said. “Do we have any idea what they are?”

“Those three are some kind of wallaby, I think,” Carla pointed to the mini kangaroos. “And the bird is a dodo.”

“That one’s a lemur,” Melody said, “At least I think it is. It looks kinda like the ones in Madagascar, anyway. But bigger, I think.”

“Cool, and what about the definitely carnivorous possibly a dog one?” Fiddleford asked. Stan snorted.

“That’s a Tasmanian Tiger,” Stan said. The others, Fiddleford included, shot him incredulous looks. Stan scowled at them and muttered something about an Animal Planet documentary. Fiddleford decided to let it go, instead turning back to the monitors and fast forwarding to the attack, and subsequent release, of the animals that now may or may not have been roaming their facility.

Lolph and Dundgren tore through the thin metal and glass like it was nothing. Apparently zombies were unaware that they had opposable thumbs. Fiddleford said a brief thank you for small miracles.

He couldn’t really stomach the attack, but he was afraid that looking away would mean being caught unawares later. The animals didn’t stand a chance, but the two zombies never spent long on any of them, always getting distracted by a new target. The Tasmanian Tiger was the first animal to rise again, and Fiddleford felt his stomach drop when it snapped up a mouse that had evaded the humans, swallowing the poor rodent whole. He shuddered as it moved out of frame. The wallabies were up next, hopping after the tiger, but then the lemur scampered up a supply closet and started trying to pry open a vent. Fiddleford was definitely not the only one to cast a wary glance at the vents that lined the walls around them. Last was the dodo bird, which moved slowly as it picked its way out of it’s cage. The dodo was the only animal Fiddleford wasn’t too worried about, they were slow and fat and dumb. Even as a zombie, he couldn’t really see it being a threat.

That was when the dodo bird bolted off screen, faster than any of the other animals had. Fiddleford switched the cameras to the hall, where a group of zombies were trying to bust through the barricade that had protected the lab. They’d cracked the viewing window next to the door, and Fiddleford watched in horror when it shattered. The Tasmanian Tiger jumped through the window quickly, followed by the wallabies. Then the crowd closed in on the window, trying to force their way through the opening. Fiddleford thought he caught sight of the dodo between the bodies, but it was hard to be sure. Could it have made that jump though? He’d always heard that the birds were flightless, but he’d also heard that they were sitting ducks and an evolutionary joke, which they were clearly not, so he wasn’t sure what to believe anymore.

“We should go back to the present footage,” Carla said, “We need to know where they are now.”

Fiddleford did as asked, flipping through monitors and checking floor by floor for the animals. Why did these cameras have so many blind spots?

“Fuck, we need to make sure they can’t get in here,” Stan said. “Is there anyway to seal off the vents?”

“Not without cutting off our air,” Fiddleford said. “A better idea would be to keep doors closed when rooms are empty and assign someone to be on watch at all times. We can do it in shifts.”

“We could maybe put cloth over the vents?” Carla suggested, “That way we don’t block the airflow, but the lemur won’t see us?”

“It’s more likely to hear us then see us,” Melody said. “We’ll have to work on keeping quiet from now on.”

“We need a way to defend ourselves,” Ford said. “If one of those things gets in we’re dead.”

“What do you want us to do, beat them over the head with a keyboard?” Melody scoffed “This place doesn’t exactly have an armory.”

Ford scowled at her. “I’m an _inventor_ , I sure can figure out _something_ with all the machines down here.”

Fiddleford sighed. “Yeah, alright, just don’t go pulling apart any computers. If we lose contact with the outside world we’re screwed.”

“I’ll take first watch,” Stan volunteered. “Carla, can you handle rounding up some cloth covers for the vents?”

Carla nodded, slipping out of her labcoat. “Not a problem. Though I would like to take a look at the building’s blueprints again. Maybe there are vents that would be too small for that lemur?”

Fiddleford moved back to his computer and pulled up Pacifica’s email once more. “Have at ‘em.”

Then he returned to the monitors. The Tasmanian Tiger was on sublevel five, and the wallabies were picking apart leftover corpses on level one. The lemur and the dodo bird, however, were still unaccounted for. Fiddleford scanned through the cameras again, but they didn’t appear on the second look through either. Or the third.

“I can’t find the bird or the lemur,” he groaned.

Carla bit her lip. “They must be in a blind spot right now. I’m sure they’ll turn up.”

“We’re all going to die,” Fiddleford said.

“We’re not going to _die_ , Fiddleford.”

They were _definitely_ going to die.

 

#### GRAVITY FALLS, OREGON

Wendy’s father had taught her a lot of things growing up, but the most important lesson she’d ever learned was to always trust her gut. And when she got to Gravity Falls? All she could think was that the place was too good to be true.

Her friends didn’t see it. They were so relieved to be somewhere safe they were probably willing to accept anything. Wendy wasn’t. She didn’t know why, but something about Gideon was rubbing her the wrong way. And his whole origin story just seemed...off, somehow. The timeline was too short, and he was far too cheery for a teenager that was implying he’d recently had to kill his own father. Something was very wrong with that whole situation.

As soon as they were on their own Wendy started combing through the rulebook they’d been given. There were quiet hours for the whole town, and a curfew for those who didn’t have work passes. That made sense, she supposed, since they didn’t want to attract the undead’s attention to their little settlement. But there were other rules that seemed a bit weirder. Certain buildings that were off limits, for example. One warehouse in particular that the rules claimed was unstable and old, but she was fairly certain she’d seen it earlier and it had looked perfectly safe. It was just...weird. Worrying.

There was a knock at the door, and Wendy jumped, and reached for her hatchet before she realized what she was doing. “Hello? I’ve got rations for five?”

“Just a sec!” Wendy called back, taking a breath and trying to clear the panic from her system. Weird or not, the town was still safe. Just because Gideon was a white haired creep didn’t mean the place was dangerous.

Wendy opened the door to a smiling old woman with a lazy eye. She had five large boxes in her arms, and Wendy rushed to take them. “Thank you for bringing these, ma’am.”

“Aw, think nothing of it hun,” said the woman, “I’m Susan Wentworth, I deliver the rations to everyone on this street.”

“Wendy Corduroy,” she said, shifting the boxes to one arm so that she could shake hands. “Pleasure to meet you, Ms. Wentworth.”

She laughed, “Oh, no need to be so formal. Call me Lazy Susan, everyone does. Are your roommates around?”

“Hello!” Thompson made his way to door to great Susan, and Wendy went ahead and set their rations down on the counter while he introduced himself.

“How wonderful to meet you!” Susan said, “There are three others though, aren’t there?”

“Nate and Tambry are here too, but they’re sleeping. Robbie decided to make us all look bad by applying for a job right off the bat,” Wendy said, coming back to the door.

“Oh how wonderful!” Susan said, “It’s so lovely to see kids taking initiative!”

Wendy decided to let that comment slide. “Yeah, well, he’s a pre-med student, so he pretty much knew exactly where he would be most helpful as soon as he saw the flyer for the clinic. The rest of us will have to actually investigate jobs if we want to find out where we belong.”

Susan smiled again, clearly missing Wendy’s sarcasm. “Well we can always use help down at Greasy’s! We prepare and deliver weekly rations, plus operate the restaurant, so it’s pretty busy.”

Wendy wondered why Susan was wasting time chatting with them if her job was so demanding, but thought it might be rude to voice the question.

“Have you kids gotten a tour yet?”

“Yes ma’am,” Thompson said, grinning, “Gideon showed us around himself before dropping us off here.”

“Oh wonderful!” Susan said, “Isn’t he such a sweet young man?”

Wendy wondered why they were “kids” and Gideon was a “young man”, but decided that snark could wait until after she got some answers. “Yeah, he is. How long have you known him for?”

Susan smiled, and if not for her lazy eye Wendy was sure it would have been quite charming. “I’ve lived in Gravity Falls my whole life, so I watched that little boy grow up. He’s been the town darling since he learned to talk, he was always so sweet. Now when he came back home talking about zombies, I’ll admit we were all a little skeptical at first, but when we saw what was happening to that poor Silena girl he brought back from Portland? Why we just _knew_ he was telling the truth!”

“It’s so lucky that you guys were able to get the wall up in time,” Thompson said.

“Oh, luck had nothing to do with it. Gideon was the reason we were able to get that wall up in time to save the town. He kept us working night and day to get it finished, and thank goodness he did! Not a _day_ after we’d finished up a whole pack of those terrible things tried to get through the wall,” Susan said, “I’ll tell you, we’re just lucky to have such a fine, upstanding young gentleman as Gideon Gleeful calling our town little home.”

Then Susan seemed to realize that she did, in fact, have a job to get back too, but she made them promise to stop by the diner soon before she left. Wendy sighed in relief as they closed the door, but she was mentally filing away everything Susan had said.

“Well she was nice,” Thompson said, moving into the kitchen to inspect their rations.

“She kept calling us kids,” Wendy grumbled, following his lead and pulling a box over to herself.

“She’s old, to her we _are_ kids,” Thompson said.

“She called Gideon a young man though,” Wendy said, “And we’re definitely older than him.”

Thompson shrugged, then frowned at his box. “Is this supposed to last us a week?”

Wendy frowned at the contents too. 7 protein bars, a loaf of bread, a bag of carrots, two cans of beans, and a thermos labeled soup. “They’re probably short on food, Thompson. But we can go get the stuff we brought out of the van, that should help, at least while we figure this place out.”

“Deal,” Thompson said, shutting the box and grabbing his shoes. Wendy kept a careful eye out as they made their way back to the parking lot. The people here were unnaturally friendly, and it put Wendy on edge. She’d definitely have to do some serious investigating as soon as she got a chance. The whole town just gave her a bad vibe.

She knew her friends were excited to be somewhere safe, but Wendy couldn’t shake the feeling of being in danger. Maybe she’d sign up for guard duty after all. She’d probably learn more about how the town’s defenses worked. Maybe the job would even change her mind about all this. She could only hope.

 

#### ELLENSBURG, WASHINGTON

Dipper woke up slowly. He was warm, and comfortable, and he had an actual fucking pillow for once. He didn’t want to wake up and face reality. What had even woken him up? Why wasn’t he going back to sleep?

His stomach grumbled, and Dipper sighed. He was gonna have to get up.

Dipper made his way to the kitchen, and was pleasantly surprised to find that Bill had already made coffee. Though he was less pleasantly surprised about the mess of electronics Bill had spread out on the table.

“What the fuck are you doing.”

“Good morning to you too, Pine Tree,” Bill said, not looking up from the bit of wiring he was working with. “Hope you slept well.”

“I did, it was really nice to have an actual bed to sleep in,” Dipper said, “Does this place have food? Or were you too busy gutting innocent electronics to check for that?”

“Don’t open the fridge, something in there’s expired and it’s disgusting. There’s oatmeal in the pantry though,” Bill said, “Also, I’m trying to fix a radio.”

“Would a radio even work right now?” Dipper asked, sitting at the table and watching Bill sort through the mess.

“It should,” Bill said, “This is a ham radio, if I can get it working, electricity is all it needs to connect with other people.”

“Oh,” Dipper said, eyeing the circuit boards and the wiring. He had no idea what any of it was for. “Where’d you learn to fix ham radios?”

“I didn’t,” Bill said, finally looking up to smirk at Dipper. “I’m just gonna fuck around with it until it either starts working or blows up in my face.”

Dipper gave him a horrified look, giving the radio pieces a wary glance. “You’re joking, right?”

Bill laughed. “Not at all. Though the chances of this thing actually blowing up are pretty slim.”

“So you’re just destroying a radio under the pretense of fixing it?”

“Well when you say it like _that_.”

Dipper sighed, then moved away to make breakfast. “You’re insane.”

“But I’m never boring,” Bill said, jabbing at the wires. Dipper heard a spark, then Bill yelped.

“It’s the revenge of the radio, Bill.”

Bill stuck his tongue out. “Alright kid, what’s our game plan for today?”

Dipper’s smile faded. “We should work on getting cars. The longer we stay here the more time we lose.”

“Agreed, but that may not be doable today,” Bill said, turning back to his work.

“What? Why not?” Dipper frowned. Bill just waved at the front door, not offering any further explanation. Dipper’s frown deepened, and he made his way to the front door. _Fuck_. “What happened?”

The street was crawling with infected. Dipper hadn’t seen so many in one place since they’d left Seattle. There was no way they were going to be able to safely look for supplies with this many zombies around. Hell, even if they had a car in the driveway, Dipper didn’t have faith that they could get it through the street.

“Some yahoos with machine guns came through here last night. I was kinda surprised they didn’t wake you up,” Bill said, “They crashed in one of the houses down the road after drawing just about every zombie in a twenty mile radius to this location.”

Dipper groaned, then went back to the kitchen so that he could finish eating his oatmeal.

“On the brightside, those deadheads don’t know we’re here, and the zombies will probably leave after they eat them.”

Dipper frowned. He really wasn’t awake enough to decipher Bill’s nonsense. “So what do we do? Just hang out here until they go away?”

“Why did you _think_ I started gutting a radio under the thinly veiled pretense of fixing it?”

“Because you’re insane.”

“Rude,” Bill said, mock offense seeping into his tone. “And here I was, about to offer to teach you how to use a crossbow.”

Dipper snapped to attention, and even though it led to Bill giving him a satisfied smirk, he couldn’t bring himself to care. “Really?”

“Sure, if you wanna learn,” Bill said.

“That’d be really cool of you, Bill,” Dipper had been feeling pretty useless since the moment the dome fell. He didn’t have any real skill with fighting, he didn’t know how to drive a truck, he couldn’t even shoot a gun. He’d never admit it aloud, but there was no doubt in his mind that he would be dead a hundred times over if not for Bill. Learning how to use a crossbow wouldn’t just give Dipper a way to not be entirely dependant on Bill, but it would also make him _useful_.

He was about to ask when they could start, but something else occurred to him. “Wait, but where are we gonna shoot? We can’t go outside, the fence is chain link. It won’t keep out those things if they decide they want in.”

“I was thinking the basement. There are no windows to accidentally break and it’s unfinished so you don’t have to feel bad about wrecking it.”

Dipper frowned. “Why are you assuming teaching me to shoot is going to cause property damage?”

“Do you _really_ want me to answer that?”

Dipper’s frown turned into a glare, but Bill just laughed at him. “Jesus, you look like an angry kitten.” Dipper slumped and tried not to pout. Bill’s renewed laughter told him he failed.

“I hate you.”

Bill got his laughter mostly under control, then stood and grabbed his crossbow from under the table. “Yeah, yeah, sure you do kid. Time to let me teach you how to kill things.”

Dipper wasn’t sure how he felt about that phrasing, but he followed Bill towards the basement anyway. He hesitated at the sight of the wooden staircase that led below the house; the only light was a single exposed bulb that was dangling from the ceiling above the stairs. He was pretty sure he’d seen this exact basement in a horror movie once, though he couldn’t remember much about it besides-

CLAP!

Dipper jumped about a foot in the air and nearly fell down the stairs. He was saved by Bill, who pulled him back against his chest as he laughed. “Oh god, your face!”

Dipper glared and tried to pull away, but Bill’s grip was firm. “Let me go!”

“You sure? I’d hate for you to fall down the stairs, Pine Tree,” Bill’s voice was right next to his ear, much too close for comfort, and Dipper couldn’t stop himself from blushing.

“The only reason I was in danger of falling was because you scared me!” Dipper said, slumping in defeat. “Asshole.”

“I’d say sorry, but I’m really, _really_ not,” Bill said. “Also, I only clapped. Not my fault you get jumpy around basements.”

“It’s pitch black down there,” Dipper grumbled.

He felt Bill shrug against his back. “There’s another light switch at the bottom of the stairs. It’s a pretty shitty design.”

Then Bill released him and started making his way down the steps. “You coming or what?”

Dipper sighed, and put some definite thought into just slamming the door shut and leaving Bill alone down there, but ultimately decided that learning to defend himself outweighed being petty. At least this time.

“Yeah, yeah. But please, no more horror movie references.”

Bill laughed again, and promised nothing, and Dipper tried to resign himself to having a terrible day.

 

**Song for this chapter: Home by Phillip Phillips**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, remember when I tagged this fic as having Billdip in it? That didn't stop being a thing or anything.
> 
>  
> 
> Also shout out to anyone who catches my PJO references, I'm literally trash for that fandom right now. Solangelo owns my soul and I'm in love with Apollo. Gods help me, I nearly types "gods" like six times while writing this fic.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry that this took so long to get out to you guys! I lost my writing mojo for awhile, and a lot of shit has changed in my life that made writing a little difficult. There's a full explanation on the blog, but long story shot: College sucks, my dog passed, and my parents got it in their heads to move onto a boat. I meant to get this chapter up yesterday, but I got distracted by the arrival of a kitchen table and then losing power on the boat, and there's a dock wide wifi outage because my marina sucks. But I'm back! I've got my flow back and I'm very excited to get back to this story, and in honor of that the theme for this chapter is hope. I normally wait till the end of a chapter to share the song, but I'm making an exception because I think the vibe will transfer better if you listen while you read, so this chapter's song is "Room @ the End of the World" by Matt Nathanson, and it actually inspired this chapter (or at least parts of it) when I happened to hear it on the radio. Enjoy!

#### BURNEY, CALIFORNIA

Pacifica did her best to keep everyone’s spirits up as they walked. They were lucky that they were far enough North that the heat wasn’t too much of an issue, and the walk wasn’t difficult either. But even when they saw the first sign for Burney, morale was low.

Mabel felt awful, she was blaming herself for not keeping an eye on the gas tank, but there was nothing Pacifica could do to snap her out of it. Candy was on edge, tensing up at every stray noise, be it a distant moan or a bird call. She’d also forbidden them from speaking unless absolutely necessary, just to make sure they didn’t attract unwanted attention. Pacifica wasn’t sure if that would really keep them safe, but the forest on either side of the road was so thick that she couldn’t see three feet into the shadow of the trees, and it was better to be safe than sorry anyway.

It was only a few more minutes until they spotted the exit, but it took them twenty to actually get into town. Candy took the lead, crouching low and hiding behind cars whenever she saw them, peeking around corners to check for dead and making all sorts of hand gestures that Grenda and Mabel seemed to understand but were meaningless to her. She supposed it was one of those things the girls had come up with before Pacifica joined their little group. Mabel had done her best to integrate Pacifica when they had started dating, and Candy and Grenda had taken to her pretty well by now, but there were still times when Pacifica felt like a stranger looking in on their little trio.

The four of them were crouched along a wall, edging slowly towards the corner, when Pacifica heard the first groans from the next street. Candy held her hand up in a clear signal to stop, then crept forward on her own. Candy was so low to the ground she was practically sitting when she finally peeked around the corner, but she’d hardly peeked for three seconds before she snapped back around and started moving back towards them, shaking her head rapidly.

Pacifica pointed towards a small Ma’ and Pop shop they’d passed earlier, hoping the others would understand her request to get inside so that they could actually talk out a plan. Candy nodded, then looked to Grenda and Mabel for objections. Receiving none, she led the way back into the store. It was a little brickface storefront with two large windows that had “Dusk 2 Dawn” stenciled in gold. The door was plain wood with a window in the top half and a shiny gold handle.

The sign on the door read open and the door was unlocked, but Candy stopped Pacifica from actually opening the door, shaking her head and pointing to the top of the doorframe. There was a bell hanging above the outside of the door, innocently waiting to announce their presence to the world as soon as the door moved.

Pacifica glared at the bell for a moment, then turned to Grenda and attempted to explain via gesture a plan for opening the door without setting off the bell. The bell was too high for most people to mess with, but Grenda was just tall enough that she could reach up and silence the bell while Pacifica opened the door. Pacifica must have been better at gesturing than she thought she was, because Grenda nodded and reached up to hold the bell still.

Pacifica slowly opened the door, and Grenda pulled the over-the-door hanger down. They slipped inside just in time for the groans on the next street to increase in volume, and Pacifica sighed with relief when the noise was cut off by the door closing. Candy locked the door before she pulled the curtains closed over the door’s window, then moved to close the blinds that hung above the large storefront windows.

“There’s a huge pack of deadheads around the corner on that next street, no way past them. So long as we’re quiet they probably won’t see us, but try to keep away from the windows and no big lights, okay?” Candy stepped away from the windows, a frown on her face. “Until we figure out how to get passed them safely, we may as well take some time to rest and resupply.”

Pacifica took in the small store, the shelves that weaved through the room were just short enough to see over, and they were filled with everything from candy bars to toiletries to tools, and along the back wall were fridges filled with drinks and ice cream. Her eyes fell on a white paper lying on the counter, and she scanned the letter before reading it aloud.

“Dear Traveler, Ma and I have left town, this town ain’t safe for us anymore. The store is to remain open, and should serve to welcome any in need of a safe harbor. Take only what you need, and don’t feel obligated to leave us a dime. Stay safe, and may God be with you in these trying times. Signed Ma and Pa,” she set the letter back on the counter. “Well that’s nice of them.”

“What happens if you take stuff you don’t need?” Grenda asked, clearly looking at the candy bar display.

“The ghosts of every nice old couple to ever run a general store will rise from the grave and haunt your ass,” Candy deadpanned.

Pacifica rolled her eyes, “Just pay for it, Grenda.”

Grenda dropped a ten on the counter, then started picking candy bars. Pacifica rolled her eyes, moving back to get water instead. Candy had snatched some toiletries and disappeared into a bathroom, which Pacifica decided was probably something they should all do before they left. She happened to turn just as Mabel ducked through a curtain behind the counter into the back room, but she wasn’t at a loss for how to cheer her up anymore. Pacifica snatched a tub of chocolate ice cream from the freezer, dropped a five on the counter as she passed it, and followed Mabel behind the curtain.

There was a short hallway that connected a storage room, empty save for boxes and dust bunnies, and a staircase which led to an apartment above the store. Pacifica walked into a joint living room and kitchen, with old furniture that was worn down in the way that told you someone lived here, that this was a home. She found Mabel curled up on the floor in front of the couch, her arms around her legs and her face pressed against her knees. Pacifica crossed into the kitchen and quietly looked through the drawers until she found some spoons, then she took a seat next to Mabel.

Mabel looked up at her with watery eyes, and Pacifica offered her a spoon. Mabel took it, and they ate ice cream in a comfortable silence, just enjoying each other's company. Pacifica realized that the reason she’d been having so much trouble trying to figure out what to say to Mabel was because Mabel wasn’t ready to talk this out. She would be, given more time, and Pacifica was sure that they’d spend hours talking out everything that was happening eventually, but for right now Mabel just needed to process the grief. That didn’t mean Pacifica was going to leave her to do it on her own though.

They kept sitting there, even when the ice cream was long gone, and Pacifica wrapped an arm around her when Mabel started to drift off and lean on her. “Get some rest, Mabes. I’ll be here when you wake up.” Mabel made a sleepy noise of agreement, and Pacifica kissed the top of her head as she fell asleep.

Watching over Mabel now, Pacifica was slammed with how much she cared about this girl, and she bit back the words that had been in the back of her mind for the past few months. They hadn’t said them yet, the relationship still seemed too new at only four months. But Pacifica couldn’t keep herself from thinking them. They swirled around her head, begging to be given voice, and as her eyes started to grow heavy, Pacifica decided it’d be okay to say them a little early, if only in a whisper.

“I love you.”

 

#### ELLENSBURG, WASHINGTON

Teaching Dipper how to shoot a crossbow was turning out to be significantly more difficult than Bill had expected. He understood the basics alright, and he could load it and fire without any trouble. But aiming? That was seeming more and more like a lost cause.

Bill had a hand over his mouth already, but it wasn’t enough to muffle his laughter when Dipper loosed another bolt only to miss the dartboard they were using as a target. Again. “Shut _up_ , Bill.”

“You know, statistically speaking, it’s pretty much impossible that you still haven’t hit the target,” Bill said, trying to keep his laughter under control as Dipper glared at him. God, Bill had seen puppies that were more intimidating.

“Must be a sign that your crossbow is broken,” Dipper said. Bill snorted, then stepped forward and took the bow from Dipper. He reloaded, then fired a perfect bullseye. He turned to Dipper with his best shit eating grin.

“Nah, you just have _really_ shitty aim.” He passed the crossbow back to Dipper, who looked like he was torn between wanting to punch Bill in the face and wanting to ask for advice. “Don’t fire again just yet, I’m gonna get these out of the wall.”

He started pulling out the bolts, he hadn’t realized just how _many_ there were until he’d decided to pull them out, and frowned. How was it even possible for someone to be _this_ bad of a shot? Bill knew that getting to his own skill level took time and practice that Dipper didn’t have, but it was a stationary target at twenty feet, and Dipper hadn’t hit it once. Bill wondered if this was the universe’s way of punishing him (because apparently a fucking apocalypse wasn’t punishment enough).

Bill could hear Dipper set the crossbow down, then come to help yank the bolts out of the wall. “Sorry I’m so bad at this.”

“No need to apologize. A crossbow isn’t the easiest weapon to use, most people can’t shoot them at all. You at least know how to use one now, and that’s the first step,” Bill said.

“How’d you learn then?”

“My step-dad taught me when I was ten,” Bill said, frowning again. “Only favor the bastard ever did me, really, and it’s only come in handy because some jackasses started a zombie apocalypse.”

Dipper paused for a moment, and Bill knew he was debating whether or not to ask about the old man. He couldn’t help but be relieved when Dipper decided not to pry. “We don’t _know_ that someone started it.”

Bill rolled his eyes. “What, you think this happened naturally? Some new and deadly virus which evolved completely on its own without any influence by humanity?”

“Well, no, but, I mean that whatever happened was probably an accident. Nobody would _purposefully_ unleash a zombie apocalypse.”

Bill snorted. “Maybe. But if you ask me? If you’re doing something that accidentally creates the _literal_ _living dead_ , then you shouldn’t be doing it to begin with.”

“Point taken,” Dipper said. They continued to pull out bolts in silence after that, though the silence made time stretch out so the task seemed to take hours. Bill was just glad that most of the bolts had gone into the drywall instead of the support beams; the few that did get stuck in the beams were nearly impossible for him to pull out, and Dipper just gave up on them entirely.

Eventually they finished, and Bill decided that if he wanted to avoid a repeat he needed to improve Dipper’s aim somehow, instead of just watching him fail to do so on his own.

“Alright, I want you to set up another bolt and take aim, but don’t fire until I say so,” Bill said, watching with a critical eye as Dipper followed his instructions. He raised the bow, and Bill took in his stance, nudging his elbow into place and knocking his feet apart. Bill tried to check Dipper’s aim from a respectful distance, then gave up and wrapped his arms overtop of Dipper’s.

“W-what are you doing?”

“Helping you aim. You kinda suck at it,” Bill said, pulling the crossbow up a bit. “Open your left eye, closing it only helps if you’ve got a scope.Otherwise you’re just hurting your depth perception.”

“Did you really need to be this close to tell me that?” Dipper’s voice cracked a bit, and Bill took his eyes off the target long enough to notice the flush creeping down Dipper’s neck. There was a moment when Bill considered ignoring it and continuing the lesson in a professional matter, but...being cute was pretty much all Dipper was good for, and messing with him was entirely too much fun to pass up. Besides, it wasn’t as though Dipper’s aim could get any worse.

Bill leaned a bit closer, so that Dipper would be sure to feel his breath against his neck when Bill spoke. “Shush, I’m not done yet,” Dipper shivered, and Bill couldn’t help his smirk. “Breathe in deeply, and steady your arms. Focus on lining up the tip of the bolt with target.”

Dipper followed his instructions, but his blush only seemed to get darker as it disappeared below the collar of his flannel. “I still don’t see why you need-”

“Shhhh,” Bill said, letting his grin press against Dipper’s neck. “Just focus on the target. Now breathe in, and on the exhale pull the trigger.”

Dipper did, and this time the bolt finally, _finally_ , hit the dart board. It was in one of the outer rings, so not a perfect shot, but it was on the board. “Good job, kid.”

“I...I did it,” Dipper said, his face splitting into a grin as he turned around to pull Bill into a hug. “I did it!”

“You sure did,” Bill said, loosely returning the hug. No one had hugged him since he left home, and it took him a minute to remember how to respond to the touch. Then he stepped back, once more establishing their usual boundaries. “Now let’s take a break to get lunch, then we’ll see if you can do it again without my help.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Dipper said, leading the way towards the stairs. “This basement was getting creepy anyway.”

“Wuss.”

“Shut _up_ , Bill.”

 

#### GRAVITY FALLS, OREGON

The clinic was a large building on the edge of the downtown area. It had two floors, the first with a lobby and a few basic check up rooms made of curtains, and the second was for beds and a makeshift operating room. From the look of the building Robbie was pretty sure it had once been a dance studio.

A perky girl with a megawatt smile and neon pink hair greeted him when he walked through the door. “Good morning! Welcome to the Gravity Falls Clinic, I don’t recognize you, is it your first time visiting us? I’m Tiffany, and it’s a pleasure to me you! What seems to be the problem today?”

It took Robbie a moment to work through the flood of words, but he did his best to return her smile. “My name’s Robbie, my friends and I actually just got to town today. There’s no problem, but I saw this flyer that said you all were looking for doctors.”

“Oh!” Tiffany’s smile seemed to grow even bigger. Robbie had never seen someone smile so much in his life, so he wasn’t sure how she managed to be that peppy during an apocalypse. “I’m so glad you came by! We’re pretty much always short staffed, especially cause we’ve always gotta have someone by the gate to look at newbies. You look a little young to be a doctor though, no offense.”

“None taken,” Robbie said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m actually still in medical school, I’d just started my residency. I was studying to be a pediatrician.”

“Really? That’s wonderful!” Tiffany said. “We don’t have any general practice doctors, just a few E.R. nurses, a pharmacist, and a medical examiner. Don’t get me wrong, they’re great, and most of what we get here are injuries anyway, but we’ve got a lot of kids too, ya know?”

“Well, kids are my specialty,” Robbie said, smiling. “I saw some of the families when my group got the tour earlier. You guys have got a pretty nice set up here.”

Tiffany sighed. “I suppose it’s nice, but so much of what we have is just us making do with what we’ve been given. Gravity Falls apparently didn’t have an actual doctor’s office, just a pharmacy, so everything we’ve got here is scavenged. We’re always sending the scouts new lists, but most of those boys can’t even tell the difference between stethoscope and an otoscope.”

“Really? That’s...that’s kind of depressing, actually. How do you not know what a stethoscope is? That’s like, the most basic doctor’s tool ever,” Robbie said.

Tiffany just shrugged, “Well, the scouts are all volunteers, ya know? And most of them aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed, if you catch my drift. Plus there just aren’t a lot of them, so Gideon prioritizes what they’re to look for, and as it stands now medical supplies just aren’t very high on the list. Not when we’ve got food shortages and a limited ammo supply, anyway.”

“But what if something happens? This is a pretty close knit community, from what I’ve seen. If someone gets sick, it’ll spread like wildfire,” Robbie said, his frown growing. Tiffany just shrugged again.

“Well, they do have the pharmacy. Personally I’ve just been hoping that if it ever happens, that medicine will be enough,” she said, “Apparently they had a doctor who made house calls who lived just outside of town, but no one actually knows where his cabin is and no one has seen or heard from him since the wall went up. How a town this small and close could collectively not know where their doctor lives seems crazy to me, but I guess he was a bit of a recluse.”

“So I take it you’re not a local either?” Robbie asked, and Tiffany shook her head.

“No, I’m from Southern Washington. My boyfriend happened to have a ham radio, so when we had to flea our town because of the zombies we decided to head here,” Tiffany’s smile fell, and she sighed, aimlessly shuffling papers around on her desk. “He didn’t make it here with me.”

“I’m so sorry,” Robbie said, “My friends and I are from Portland. We got stuck in the quarantine, but after it failed and the government bailed we went ahead and ran. Our first plan was to go to Salem, one of my friends had family had a logging camp up there and we thought it’d be safe, but when we got there...well, we were wrong, and we lost one of our number because of it. But we also found a radio there, so we found out about this place and made our way here.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I guess we’ve all got sob stories, don’t we? But enough of that sad stuff,” Tiffany said, rummaging through her desk until she found a paper application form. “I technically don’t have hiring power, since I’m just a secretary, but give me your name and your credentials, plus your new address if you’ve got it memorized. I’ll pass this info on to the boss, and he’ll look it over. I’m certain that he’ll want to hire you, so don’t worry about that. Come back tomorrow to meet him and we’ll show you the ropes, okay? Say, 10:00 AM?”

“Sure thing,” Robbie said quickly filling out the paperwork as best he could, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Tiffany said, giving him one final smile before he left the clinic and made his way back to the apartment. Robbie couldn’t help but smile a bit to himself as he walked through town, things were finally looking up. Gravity Falls was safe, and the people were nice, what better place to wait out an apocalypse?

When he got back to the apartment Wendy and Thompson were gone, but there were five boxes of food rations on the counter, along with a note that said the two of them had gone to unload the car, “in case you lazy jerks wake up and we haven’t come back yet”. Robbie snorted, and decided that joining the “lazy jerks” in a nap didn’t sound so bad.

He slipped into the room Tambry had claimed earlier. He’d thought she was asleep, but when he crawled into bed next to her she turned to face him. “How’d your interview go?”

“I just spoke to the secretary and filled out an application, but they’re short staffed so she seemed to think I’d get the job. I go back tomorrow to talk to the boss,” he said, curling his arms around her and pulling her close.

“Well that’s nice,” Tambry said.

“Mhmm. I really like this place, Tambers. I think that this may be the start of a really good thing for us.”

“‘Bout time we got some good luck,” Tambry said, a sleepy smile slipping onto her face. “But now it’s time for sleep, kay?”

“Kay,” Robbie said, kissing her forehead before closing his eyes and slipping off to sleep.

 

#### ELLENSBURG, WASHINGTON

Dipper finally called it quits on crossbow practice when his stomach growled loudly, reminding him that he’d been at this for hours now. It was easy to lose track of time without Bill around to make snide comments on his aim, but he’d certainly improved from this morning. He still wasn’t anywhere near as good as Bill, and he probably couldn’t reliably kill any zombies with the crossbow, but he wasn’t embedding arrows in the wall anymore (much), and that was good enough for him.

He wandered upstairs to find dinner, and instead found Bill tinkering with the completely gutted, was-maybe-once-a-radio. He snorted as Bill shocked himself again, and Bill glared at him as pressed his injured fingers to his lips. Dipper suddenly recalled Bill’s “lesson” earlier that afternoon, and quickly turned to the pantry to hide his blush. Stupid blushing.

“Get any better, Pine Tree?”

“I’m finally able to hit the target, so I guess,” Dipper said, grabbing a can of beans. “You want anything?”

“Is it really dinner time already?” Bill said, surprise coloring his voice as he looked outside to the setting sun. “Well, time certainly does fly when you’re electrocuting yourself. Food would be great, whatever’s easy is fine.”

Dipper grabbed a second can of beans and then started digging around for a pot. “Any luck with your “fuck around and I hope I do something right” plan? Or are you finally ready to admit that you have no idea what you’re doing with that thing?”

“No and no, but I found out that the TV works,” Bill said, gesturing to the living room. “I even found a station that was still broadcasting, some news station, but their broadcast is on a loop. The infection is on the East Coast now, not sure how that happened because the Midwest is still zombie free. Cell phone service has been returned to us though, if you’re in an area with power. They also said it’s supposed to update at six every night, which was probably several hours ago, if you wanna check it again.”

Dipper put down the beans and the pot, then moved into the living room and switched on the TV. The KGW newsroom looked more depressing than he’d ever seen it look before, and not because Shandra Jimenez was covered in what appeared to be blood. She looked solemn, and the camera shook just slightly, as if the person operating it either didn’t know what they were doing or was shaken up about something. Possibly both. The co-host was conspicuously absent.

“We have several new updates tonight, but I’m afraid none of it is good news,” Shandra said. “First, an update on the spread of the infection. There have now been reports of zombies in Colorado, Nebraska, and New Mexico, and the Mexican border along California, Arizona, and New Mexico has been overrun. Refugees are advised to steer clear of all major roads and border patrol stops. Alternative roads of entry are available on the KGW website, but the infected are moving south quickly. On the East Coast things aren’t much better, with South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Ohio, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Main being infected. The Island of Manhattan has barricaded it’s tunnels, bridges, and subway systems, cutting itself off entirely. It is the only part of the East Coast that is currently zombie free, refugees can take a ferry across the East River if cleared by officials on the mainland, but there is no telling how long the ferry will remain operational. We’ve also received reports that Quebec and New Brunswick have become infected, but we have no confirmation from the Canadian government.”

“Shit,” Bill said, Dipper hadn’t even realized he’d entered the room.

“We’ve also gotten an update on the virus itself, and I hope you’re all listening because this could be it’s most dangerous development yet. Humans are not the only creatures vulnerable to the virus, animals can be infected as well. We’re not sure if the infection can spread to all species, but from the eyewitness report we received earlier it seems that mammals for certain are vulnerable. Moreover, infected animals are liable to be more dangerous than humans, so we advise that you use extreme caution if travelling with pets or when encountering new animals of any kind.”

“We’re all gonna die,” Dipper whispered. He hadn’t realized Bill could hear him until the man scoffed.

“We’re not gonna die. I can shoot a wild animal just as easily as I can shoot a person,” Bill said.

“But what if you can’t see it? What if it’s like, a hamster or something?”

“Hamster wouldn’t survive a human bite, this announcement is for like, dogs or horses or some shit.”

“We’re issuing a special word of warning to those of you in the San Francisco area, as the San Francisco Zoo animals were released into the city by an unknown group of animal rights activists last night. There were sightings of lions running down Skyline Boulevard this morning,” Shandra said, “Please be careful, San Francisco..”

“Damn. And here I thought San Francisco was dangerous _before_ the zombie apocalypse,” Bill said. “See, this is why I don’t want to go South. There are no zombie lions in Canada.”

“There could be zombie moose though,” Dipper said. “And I’m pretty sure they still have zoos in Canada, Bill.”

“That’s a scary thought if ever I’ve heard one,” Bill said.

“For those of you who may be new to our broadcast, I’d like to once again tell you that cell phone reception has been restored to those areas that have power. Several grids throughout the country have been turned off, but large cities and most suburban areas should now have service. That’s all the new information we have right now, but you can see all our previous broadcasts on the KGW website, and there is more information available about what’s going on across the country, updated as we get it. We’ll begin airing a new broadcast at six P.M., but until then this broadcast will loop. This is Shandra Jimenez, signing off.”

The screen went black for a moment, showing a picture of a map of the United States, red pins and string were being used to show where the infection had spread so far. There was an awful lot of red, and Dipper felt a pang of fear. How could things have gotten so bad so quickly? The screen turned black again, but this time it was because Bill had turned off the television.

“Well, that was thoroughly depressing,” Bill said. “Wanna drown the fear with dinner?”

“I guess,” Dipper said, the mention of food making his stomach rumble again. But he wasn’t sure he could actually keep anything down if he ate right now, not with his anxiety twisting his stomach in knots the way it was. Bill seemed to sense this, because he hesitated after getting up, then sat back down next to Dipper and knocked their shoulders together.

“Hey, quit worrying,” Bill said, “I know that all sounds really bad, but I’m gonna keep you safe, okay? We just have to keep clear of any cities or zoos, and we’ll be fine.”

“It’s not _me_ I’m worried about,” Dipper said, “It’s Mabel. What if she doesn’t have access to the news? What if she’s trying to go North and goes through San Francisco? Or what if she went South and got stuck at the Mexico border? Or what if―”

“Dipper,” Bill cut him off, “Calm down. Just focus on breathing for a second okay? Breathe in, breathe out, count to ten.” Dipper hadn’t even realized he’d started to hyperventilate, but he followed Bill’s instructions, breathing in until the panic faded. “Listen to me, your sister is gonna be just fine. You told me she’s tough, right? And if she’s half as smart as you, she’ll be checking the news somehow. She’s gonna be careful, and she’s gonna stay safe.”

“Thank you,” Dipper said, knocking his shoulder against Bill’s. “For everything, not just talking me down from a panic attack.”

“You’re welcome,” Bill said, “I’m sure you’d do the same for me, if our positions were reversed. Now come on, we’ve got beans to eat, and a radio to maybe fix.”

Dipper snorted, “At this point I’d say that _I_ have a better chance of fixing that radio than you do.”

“You think so? Well, then it’s official, we’re switching jobs. I’ll cook, and you acquire new electrical burns,” Bill said, pulling Dipper to his feet and herding him into the kitchen.

“Wait, Bill, I don’t actually know how to fix a radio.”

“Neither do I, but did that stop me from trying?”

“It _should_ have,” Dipper grumbled, but he didn’t fight Bill as he was manhandled into a chair at the kitchen table. He supposed it’d be nice to have something to do with his hands, it might keep his mind off things for a bit. Bill took over cooking, and Dipper scanned the various wires in front of him, trying to think back to his high school physics class. They’d gone over the basics of circuitry, and he’d never had problems understanding the diagrams they’d gone over. Surely the real thing couldn’t be _too_ much different, right?

He poked at the wires, and yelped as they shocked him. Bill tried to hide his laugh with a cough, but Dipper could clearly see the amusement on the older man’s face. He leveled him a quick glare before turning back to the radio. This was going to be a bit harder than his high school physics class.

 

#### BURNEY, CALIFORNIA

Candy had never thought that brushing her teeth could improve her mood so much, but it was without a doubt her new favorite feeling. Mabel and Pacifica had disappeared upstairs when she got out of the bathroom, but that was fine. They could probably do with some alone time anyhow. So could Candy, if she was being honest. She loved the girls to death, but even among your best friends there was a limit to how much time could be spent in a car together.

She took the opportunity to take a quick inventory of the store, making a mental list of what she wanted to take with them when they left. Grenda was in the candy isle, moaning over a chocolate bar. Candy stifled her chuckle as best she could, and turned back to the camping supply section. If they had a car they could really load up, but as it stood now they had to carry everything themselves. Which reminded her, she needed tools to hotwire a new car.

She made a mental note to come back here and thank the owners of this store when the apocalypse was over, because this place had everything a novice carjacker could possibly want. Doorstops, shish kabob sticks, screwdrivers, hammers, pliers, electrical tape, knives, and power drills. With these, plus all those midnight searches on wikihow, she was pretty confident that she could break into and hotwire any car they could grab, so long as it wasn’t one of those bullshit key fob cars with the ignition buttons. So really, any kind of old looking car they could grab. The older the better.

“Alright I give up,” Grenda said, munching on a Twix bar while she inspected Candy’s tools. “What the hell is the doorstop for?”

“It’s for stealing a car. We might need it to pry the door open, depending on what we end up grabbing,” Candy said. Grenda raised an eyebrow at her. “What?”

“Since when do you know how to break into cars?”

“Since the Pontiac Bandit taught Jake how to do it. I was curious how accurate the episode was, so I looked it up on wikihow one night,” Candy said. Grenda snorted at her. “We’re lucky I did! How else would we be able to get a car again?”

Grenda raised her hands in surrender. “I’m not judging, I just find your desire to fact check a sitcom amusing.”

“I just thought it might come in handy one day, so I wanted to get my facts straight,” Candy said, “I looked up how to hotwire cars too, so we can get anything that isn’t too electrical. So no new cars, but otherwise we’re good if we can find something that’s sheltered.”

“Why does it need to be sheltered?” Grenda asked, “There are like, twelve cars on this street alone.”

“Yeah, and a horde of the living dead on the next one,” Candy said, “Breaking into a car takes time, and if I accidentally set off a car alarm the dead will come running. Plus hotwiring a car means I have to rev the engine, unless it’s like, from the 70’s or earlier. But even once the engine is started we can’t go anywhere until I break the lock on the steering wheel, but that’s not gonna do us any good if we’re surrounded by the dead.”

“So you’re saying that we need a classic car that’s in a sheltered area that we can block off from the dead until the car is running?”

“Yeah, ideally. I don’t know how we’d find it though, break into people’s garages and hope for the best, I guess?” Candy sighed, that was a terrible plan, and it felt super illegal. Not to mention super invasive.

“We could do that,” Grenda said, “Or, we check out that classic car museum.”

Grenda pointed behind her, to a rack of brochures for local attractions. Candy hadn’t paid it any mind earlier, but right on the top row was brochure for a classic car museum. Candy picked it up, they had cars from every decade up to the 80’s, and there was even a map included on the back page, they could easily walk there so long as they were careful and didn’t hit anymore hoards.

“This is perfect. Good eye, Grenda.”

“You’re welcome,” Grenda said, then bit into her her Twix bar with a satisfied grin. “Are we leaving right away, or can we rest a bit?”

“We’ll rest a bit. I want dinner before we go, and I need to plot out the fastest route to the car museum, plus possible detours in case one of the roads are blocked off,” Candy said, “Can you check on Mabel and Paz? See if they’re hungry too?”

“Sure, I was gonna cook up there anyway. I’m in the mood for a hot meal,” Grenda grabbed a few canned goods, then headed out of the store and upstairs. Candy thought about joining her, but figured being alone would help improve her focus for map reading. She grabbed some pop tarts and pens, then set to work marking every route they could take.

By the time the others wandered back downstairs, her little paper map was covered in multicolored lines.

“You doodling on our map?” Pacifica asked.

“Marking the best route, plus some back ups, actually,” Candy said. “You guys ready to head out?”

“Hell yeah! Time to bash some heads!” Grenda raised her baseball bat high, and Mabel giggled at her enthusiasm. It was good to see Mabel’s spirits rising again, but Candy still had to frown.

“No, no head bashing. This is a _stealth_ mission,” she said, “We need to be quiet and avoid drawing attention to ourselves.”

Grenda grumbled, but she nodded her assent and lowered her bat again, though Candy was certain she heard some hushed comments about being a spoilsport. She didn’t understand why everyone kept calling her that.

“Alright, I’ll lead again, no talking until we get there,” Candy said. She carefully peaked through the blinds to check that the street was clear, then slipped out the door. The others followed, and they carefully made their way through the streets of Burney.

The museum wasn’t far, but progress was slow because they had to stay crouched down or pull off into side streets occasionally. They had to detour twice, but it wasn’t as bad as Candy had been worried it would be, and the sun had only just started to set when they reached the parking lot.

Candy scanned the building, the front doors were big and wooden, with chains holding them together, but seeing as this was a car museum, she figured they had to have bay doors somewhere.

She led the girls through the lot and around the side of the building, careful to listen for any sounds that would signify the approach of the infected, but it was eerily quiet. They crept around the building, until Candy’s hunch was proven correct with the appearance of bay doors.

She crept forward, there was no lock on the doors, but it didn’t look like they could be opened from the outside either. Thankfully, the side door next to them had a simple, perfectly easy to pick lock. She started gesturing to the others with the signals she, Grenda, and Mabel had created when they were kids. Pacifica looked a little lost, but Mabel and Grenda nodded enthusiastically.

Mabel pulled a bobby pin out of her hair and went to work on the door, while she and Grenda moved to keep watch. Pacifica may not have understood Candy’s gestures, but she caught on quick enough that she understood what they were doing anyway. Candy made a mental note to start teaching Pacifica their own unique brand of sign language once they got on the road again. This probably wouldn’t be the last time they’d end up using it.

There was a small click as Mabel got the door open, and she grinned at them before slipping inside. Pacifica followed her, then Grenda, and Candy brought up the rear, carefully shutting the door behind them. So far so good.

She turned around, and all sense of pride went out the window as she dropped down into a crouch again. _Shit._

Mabel and Grenda were crouching behind a set of crates to the right, and Pacifica was behind a pretty green car that Candy couldn’t identify a few feet ahead. Beyond the car, however, were about a dozen undead. _Fuck._

Candy carefully crept forward to the car, it looked old at least. “CS” was written in cursive on the passenger side door. Candy wished they were on the driver’s side, but there was no way they wouldn’t be spotted. She also wasn’t sure if she could actually get into the car without standing up.

She turned back to where Mabel and Grenda were hiding, she could see Mabel peaking around, making gestures at her. _What do we do now?_

Candy frowned, she didn’t like it. They were outnumbered three to one, but...they didn’t really have a choice. _We have to fight. Stay quiet until-_

Candy stopped gesturing as Grenda ran out from behind the crates with a battle cry of “Die zombie scum!”

Every zombie in the room turned to look at them, and Candy sighed. So much for stealth. She dropped her backpack and adjusted her grip on her fire axe before running out from behind the car to join the fray. Mabel popped up from behind the crate, balancing her shotgun and taking aim. There was a bang, and a zombie head to Candy’s right exploded. Pacifica had pulled out her handgun and was firing at zombies too.

Candy swung her axe through a zombie’s head as it charged her, but the moment of his fall pulled the axe from her hand. _Shit_.

Another zombie started to charge her, but she couldn’t get the axe out of the first one’s head. She tensed, ready to move, when Grenda intercepted the zombie with a bat. “Death to the dead!”

Grenda pulled the axe out for her, then charged back into battle. Her baseball bat was bloody, and the gems didn’t shine like they used to, but the nothing fell off. Mabel really was a queen when it came to bedazzling things.

Another zombie growled as it ran towards her, and Candy was back in motion in no time. She didn’t let herself worry about the gunfire, or how much Grenda was yelling. She couldn’t afford to lose focus. In the end, if took fifteen minutes to clear the room of zombies. Not bad, for their first real brawl.

“We did it!” Mabel squealed. “We actually beat a bunch of zombies!”

“Hell yeah!” Grenda still hadn’t switched back to her inside voice, but Candy figured it didn’t matter and let a smile slip onto her face.

“Bravo guys. We should hurry and get out of here though, we were pretty noisey,” Candy said, quickly wiping her axe off on some poor man’s shirt.

“Uh, guys,” the fear in Pacifica’s voice made her pause, her heart sinking as she turned back to her friend.

Pacifica was still standing by the car, two dead zombies on the floor next to her. At first Candy didn’t understand the tone, but then Pacifica raised her left arm. It was bleeding profusely, but Candy could still make out the teeth marks on her forearm. _Fuck._

 

**Song for this chapter: Room @ the End of the World by Matt Nathanson**


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I live!!!! I'm so sorry that this took so long guys, school has just been ugh and midterms killed me and instead of being productive over spring break I kinda just binged Voltron (no regrets). I totally suck, but I hope you guys enjoy this chapter anyway.
> 
> OH! AND WARNING! You know that "graphic depictions of gore" warning that's been on this fic since day one but hasn't really been earned yet? Well I'm finally capitalizing on that, so heads up kids. You should be able to see it coming, but I figured I'd put this warning up anyway, just to be on the safe side, since writing it made me think "wow that got hella detailed, I should warn the readers."

####  NORTHWEST COMPANY SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FACILITY, OREGON

Ford growled, tossing his papers onto the ground as he hit another wall in his work. He could work through equations all day and all night, he’d  _ been _ working through equations like that since they got trapped here, but it wasn’t doing any good. There was always a variable that he was missing, or something that needed testing. He couldn’t even recreate either formula on paper, let alone figure out where he went wrong and come up with a solution.

He sighed, rubbing his temples as he stepped back from his piles of incomplete equations and chemical formulas. He needed to take a break, he wasn’t wasn’t going to make any progress working in circles like this. He slipped out of his joke of a laboratory, closing the door behind him and trying to keep his steps light as he made his way to the kitchen to get coffee. Their floor was quieter now that they knew there were animals loose in the compound, and it was too easy to forget that he wasn’t really alone, even if it felt like it sometimes. 

Fiddleford was practically glued to the monitors, constantly searching for the animals. He still hadn’t found the dodo bird, but the lemur had eventually made its home in the offices above ground. The Wallabies wandered in a pack, moving between the ground floor and the lab they came from, and the Tasmanian Tiger was prowling Ford’s lab like a guard dog. Ford frowned at that idea, surely these things weren’t intelligent enough to stand guard over the one place that held the key to stopping them? A wild animal wouldn’t have had that level of intelligence when it was alive, there was no way it could have it now...unless Lolph and Dundgren had been doing more than just  _ cloning  _ extinct animals in that lab of theirs.

Ford shook those thoughts from his head, it wouldn’t help anything to think that way. He sighed, maybe he  _ did _ need to give his brain a break from his work finding a cure. He still needed to finish putting together a weapon to fight the infected with. He’d found pretty much everything he needed to create what would basically be a gun that fired pens and pencils, it was just waiting to be put together. He just hoped he’d be able to put enough power behind the shots for them to actually do some damage.

Ford was just about to open the door to the kitchen when he heard crying and a soft voice on the other side of the door. He wasn’t normally one to eavesdrop, but he wasn’t particularly adept at dealing with the emotionally compromised.

“Just focus on breathing with me Melody,” Carla was saying, her voice soft and slow. “In, two three four, out, four three two, in, two three four.” She kept her counting steady, and the crying grew quieter as it continued, eventually stopping altogether.

“I’m sorry, Carla,” Melody said, “I guess I’m not keeping myself together as well as I thought I was.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Carla soothed, “You have every right to be upset. I’d be more worried about you if you weren’t.”

“I know, and thank you for helping me calm down,” Melody said, “But so long as we’re trapped down here we run the risk of dying at any given moment. I can’t afford to be weak right now.”

“Hey, we are  _ not  _ going to die down here. The girls are on their way to get us out, and Ford is already working on a cure for the infected,” Carla said. “I believe in him, I know he’ll figure it out.”

Melody scoffed. “I wish I shared your faith, but it’s hopeless. We both know he won’t be able to fix this, not with the resources we have right now. It’s a lost cause. The only reason he insists on continuing to work is because he can’t stand to be idle long enough to think about what he’s done.”

“Melody-”

“People are dead, Carla.  _ Soos _ is-” Melody’s voice broke, and she cut herself off with tears mid sentence. “Everyone who dies because of this, everyone who loses friends and family, or who has to abandon their homes, all of that is because of  _ him _ . I don’t care what he was  _ trying _ to do, it changes nothing.”

Ford pulled away from the door. Forget about coffee, Melody was right. This was his fault, and he needed to fix it. No more waiting around, or trying to recreate research he’d already done. He returned to his lab and pulled out the materials for his new gun. It was time to start building, and when he finished he’d go down to his lab, kill the zombies inside of it, build a barricade, and find a cure. It was time to fix this mess.

 

####  GRAVITY FALLS, OREGON

Talking to the guards didn’t help. If anything, it made her even more suspicious. The men guarding the gates were, well. She wasn’t sure if there was a word for it. They were nice, and very hard working, but they didn’t strike her as the kind of men and women who could reliably keep back hordes of zombies, or who had ever had to fight them at all really. Wendy had fought the undead, she knew what it took. She’d seen what had happened to her friends when they fought the undead, she knew how it had changed them. But the people of Gravity Falls, even those who should have been right on the front lines, didn’t seem to have any real experience with them, or else they were absolute sociopaths, but that seemed unlikely.

Thompson had come with her to the guard station after they finished unloading the car, but she’d sent him back to the apartment to rest. She needed to figure out how the town’s defences actually worked, or else she would never be able to sleep at night. She started by walking the perimeter of the wall. At the front, it was made up of giant storage containers. She figured this was a town that had a lot of truckers passing through, so it made sense that they’d be able to pull them off 18 wheelers in a time of need.

However, when she followed the wall past the treeline, it changed. Now it looked as though the town had secured a chain link fence with plywood at the base and topped the whole thing off with razor wire. Beyond the fence she could see sharpened sticks, a few were bloody, but none had corpses stuck on them, as well as what seemed to be pits. She couldn’t hear any moans, but she didn’t see any signs of defenders either. Maybe they had patrols? She supposed as long as someone came by every hour or so to check for dead at the fence that would be all they needed.

Wendy kept walking along the fence, slowly making her way around the town. She still didn’t see any signs of guards, no guard houses or bullet casings, no trails worn into the ground from patrols. On the other hand, there was also no sign of the undead, either, save for the occasional blood stained pike on the other side of the fence. Surely that meant that  _ someone _ must patrol this area to pull the dead off those sticks? Then she heard moaning in the distance, and she froze. That wasn’t coming from outside the fence.

She took off at a sprint towards the sound of moans, pulling her hatchet from her belt loops as she ran. The dead must have gotten in somehow, and now her friends were in danger, probably still napping and completely unaware. Wendy slowed as the forest started to thin out, she didn’t want to get swarmed before she knew what she would be walking into.

The trees gave way to a clearing, and she crouched behind a bush. She was in front of the warehouse that the rulebook had said was off limits, and the moaning...her eyes widened as she realized it must be coming from inside. Was that the real reason the warehouse was off limits? Why would the town keep zombies within the wall? Or at all, really. That was insanely dangerous.

Every window on the lower level was boarded over, but there was a fire escape that led to the upper level windows, if she could get the ladder down peeking inside would be easy. Wendy carefully secured her hatchet on her belt once more, then quietly crept forward. Getting ahold of the ladder required a bit of jumping, but once she had a grip on it gravity was all she needed to pull it down. The metal rattled a bit more than she would have liked, but she hoped the moans were loud enough to cover the noise. She crept up the fire escape until she got to the top, then crept forward to look into the windows.

It was dark inside the warehouse, the only lights were from the windows lining the top of the building, plus a few lanterns scattered around. She could see a few large men with rifles around the catwalks the ringed the room, creating three levels off the ground floor for people to sit and watch whatever was going on on bellow. She couldn’t see that far down from this angle though.

Wendy ran her fingers along the windowsill. She could probably pry it open with her hatchet. There didn’t seem to be anyone nearby, unless they were sitting in the dark, so as long as she was quiet she could get in and watch from the third balcony. But was it worth it?

Her question was answered when she saw Gideon step forward to the edge of the second balcony opposite her. He waved for quiet and began speaking, but she couldn’t hear him clearly through the glass. He motioned below him though, and she saw a man being dragged forward on the lowest balcony. He was screaming, trying to fight his way free, but the men dragging him forward seemed more amused by his pleas than anything.

He turned to Gideon, but the creep started laughing, then went back to talking. Wendy needed to know what was going on here, so she pulled out her hatchet and carefully pried the window open. As soon as she did she could hear Gideon, but she still didn’t understand what was going on.

“You all know the rules, and you’ve placed your bets. On the other side of the maze is a rope, get to it, and you can climb out. Success means that we’ll set you free, but failure, well, I don’t think I need to tell you what happens when he fails,” Gideon said, laughing with the rest of the men in the audience. Wendy eased the window open further, trying to get a look at the maze. Gideon made getting out sound so easy, there had to be a catch. 

“You won’t get away with this!” the man on the lower balcony shouted, “The government will regain control eventually, and when they do, you lot will go right back to rotting in prison!”

“Oh will we?” Gideon asked, a sick grin slipping onto his face. “I hardly see how this could fall back on us.”

“You’re convicts!” the man shouted, “It’ll be my word against yours, just like it’s always been. No one will listen to your side of the story, not once they’ve heard mine.”

“That’s true. But you’ll have to make it through the maze first,” Gideon snapped his fingers, and the man was pushed forward through a gap in the railing. 

There was a thump, which Wendy used to cover her entrance. She crouched low, but no one noticed her in the dark. They all had their eyes on the ground level. 

She crept forward, until she was just on the edge of the light. She could see the maze through the railing now. It wasn’t much, just a mess of cloth walls and plywood. Some walls were solid, some could be passed through, some had curtains that pulled away to reveal wood. It was a twisted mess of dead ends and endless turns. Given time, it would be solvable, just like all mazes. But then she saw the source of the moaning that had drawn her here. The maze was filled with the undead. Some were chained to the walls of the warehouse, others roamed free. There was no way to get through without encountering them, and from the looks of it the man they’d thrown in was unarmed. 

He didn’t last long. 

The men, escaped prisoners if their victim was to believed, cheered and exchanged money and weapons. Wendy only froze for a moment, she needed to get out of here and warn her friends. 

One of the zombies let out a blood curdling scream, the sudden noise making her jump back from the railing. She slammed into something solid, and her blood ran cold as thick arms grabbed ahold of her, pushing her into the light. 

“We’ve got a visitor, boss!” The man called, and suddenly every eye was on her. 

“Wendy! What a nice surprise to see you again. Shame it couldn’t have been under better circumstances,” Gideon gave her a look of disappointment. “Didn’t anybody tell you that this warehouse is off limits? It’s just not safe, ya know?”

“You know this girl boss?” Asked the man holding her. 

“Unfortunately so, Ghost-Eyes,” Gideon said, “She’s one of our new residents, just got in this afternoon. Why don’t you bring her down here so we can chat.”

Ghost-Eyes lead her around the balcony and down a set of stairs. The other men jeered at her, and she heard a few of them placing bets. 

Gideon was leaning back on the railing when she got to him. She wondered if she could get away with pitching him over the side, then looked at the large man next to him and decided it wasn’t worth the risk. 

“The hell is going on here, Gideon?”

“Just a little entertainment for my friends and I,” he said, smiling again, “Now don’t you worry about all this though. How’d ya get in here?”

“I climbed the fire escape because I heard moaning. I thought the dead had gotten lose in town, I was worried,” she said. She needed to play her cards right if she wanted out of here. 

Gideon nodded, “I suppose that makes sense. But do you really think the dead could get through our wall without me knowing?”

“Maybe. The fence looks solid everywhere I looked, but nobody patrols it. And no offense, but the guys you’ve got on the gate aren’t really fighters,” she answered. Gideon laughed. 

“You’ve got me there. If those boys were really who kept us safe this town would’ve fallen ages ago. They’re just for show though, to make the townsfolk feel useful and to make a good impression on our guests,” Gideon gestured around the room. “ _ These _ are the men who guard the walls. On the outside, of course, we wouldn’t want any residents to get scared. They’re very good at their job though, so there’s really no need to worry about your safety.”

Wendy nodded towards the corpse the zombies were picking at in the maze. “He said they were convicts. Is that true?”

Gideon sighed. “Such a harsh word, convicts. But what can you expect from a prison guard, right boys?” Some of the men laughed. “To answer your question, yes. We were all prisoners when this mess broke out.”

That gave Wendy pause. “You were in jail? How’d you keep the town from hearing about that?”

Gideon laughed again. “Those fools will believe anything, so long as I say it with a smile. But you seem like a lady who won’t believe anything but the truth, right? Well here it is. I got into some trouble, don’t worry too much about the details, just a little treason, you know how it goes. I ended up in prison, but my father covered the whole thing up with talk about governor's school and college searches. The townsfolk ate it up. Then I got transferred, and, well, the zombie apocalypse broke out.”

“So you escaped and decided to come home and play hero?”

“Who’s playing?” Gideon asked. “We keep people safe. Without us the people of Gravity Falls would be dead. We’ve made a safe haven where folks can rebuild their lives without fear of the undead.”

“Just of the slews of escaped convicts secretly living in the woods,” Wendy said, frowning.

“Ah, we’re not hurting anybody,” Gideon made a dismissive wave. Wendy gave a pointed look to the maze below, where the man’s corpse was still being torn apart. Gideon sighed. “Yes, well, sometimes these things can’t be avoided,” Gideon waved at Ghost-Eyes, and Wendy found herself being pushed forward until she hit the railing. “You see Wendy, sometimes people stick their noses where they don’t belong. Sometimes they cause  _ trouble _ . You understand why I can’t have people like that in town, right?”

“Just want the fools too happy to be safe to question you, huh?” Wendy said. Ghost-Eyes pushed her until she was leaning over the side. The dead below had noticed, and they were reaching for her. They had no chance of getting her though, not as long as the railing digging into her stomach held anyway.

Gideon sighed again. “You disappoint me Wendy. I was really hoping we could get along, you know. You’re a tough girl, and smart, too. You’d make an excellent addition to our team if you’d just play ball.”

“Sorry, but feeding people to zombies for sport isn’t really something I can morally justify,” Wendy said. Slowly, so as not to draw attention to the movement, she moved her hand to her hatchet. 

“Such a shame you feel that way, Wendy,” Gideon said. “Oh well. Make your bets boys! We’ve got another contender for the maze! Take her down stairs.”

Ghost-Eyes pulled back, and Wendy pulled her hatchet from her belt in one fluid motion and slammed the butt into his head. Ghost-Eyes crumpled, but then another man was on her. She swung the hatchet again, trying to hit him with the flat of the blade, but he dodged her swings.

“Really Wendy? Non-lethal force?” Gideon sounded amused, and Wendy knew that there was no way she could fight her way out of this. She needed a new plan. She lunged for the walkway that led to the stairs, if she could just get out of here she could outrun them, she was sure of it.

The convict caught her by the collar and slammed her back into the railing. The impact knocked the breath out of her, and her hatchet dropped out of her hand, clanging off the metal walkway before bouncing into the maze.

“Thank you, Killbone. I do hate it when folks try to ruin the game,” Gideon said. “Now then-“

“Mr. Gleeful!” A scrawny man came running out of nowhere, out of breath but still trying to speak. “Mister. Mr. Gleeful.”

“Spit it out, Determined,” Gideon barked. 

“There’s a hoard, at the west wall,” Determined said. Gideon glared, then started barking out orders. 

“You heard the man! Get a squad together! Determined! Take Ghost-Eyes to that quack in the woods, see if he’s got a concussion. Killbone,” Gideon paused, taking a moment to appraise Wendy. “Throw her over the railing, then go join the boys on the west wall. Vega! Do me a favor and pull the rope up? I want this girl dead when we get back.”

Wendy opened her mouth to protest, but then she was being lifted. She flailed, but Killbone’s grip was firm, and suddenly she was falling. 

Pain shot up her leg when she hit the ground, but she did her best to pull herself off the ground. She wasn’t sure where she’d landed, but she could hear the dead around her.  _ Shit _ .

“Have fun, Wendy!” Gideon said. “Hit the lights on your way out boys!”

The noise of boots on metal faded out, and Wendy was left with only the light from the windows at the top of the warehouse to guide her.  _ Shit. _

 

####  BURNEY, CALIFORNIA

“Uh, guys.”

With just two words, Mabel could feel her world crumbling around her. Pacifica raised her left arm, bleeding profusely but not enough to cover the obvious bite mark.  _ No. _

“What do we do?” Grenda’s voice was quieter than Mabel had ever heard from the other girl, and she hated it. 

“I don’t know,” Candy admitted, and that was wrong too. Candy always had an idea for what to do, and Grenda was always loud, and Pacifica  _ wasn’t supposed to be dying. _

Pacifica took a breath, and then started speaking. “We need a pen and paper. I’m gonna give you guys the codes to end the lockdown.”

“I thought you needed more than just codes to end the lockdown?” Candy said, though she was already digging through her bag.

“You do,” Pacifica said, taking another breath. She was clearly trying not to seem panicked, but Mabel could see the tension in her shoulders. Pacifica held up her right arm. “You’re going to need my handprint, which means you’ll need to cut off my hand.”

Candy froze for a moment, then nodded. Mabel could feel her breathing picking up as panic set in.

“Mabel, I need you to stay calm,” Pacifica said. Mabel shook her head, trying to pull in more air, but it felt like her throat was closing up. “Hey, listen to me, you gotta breathe, Mabel. It’s gonna be okay.”

“No!” Mabel shouted, “No it’s not! You can’t tell Candy to cut off your arm and then say it’s all going to be okay!”

“That’s it!” Candy said, suddenly grinning. “I’m gonna cut off your arm!”

“I know, I just-” Pacifica paused, then her eyes widened as she looked down at her left arm. “Do you think that would really work?”

Candy was already pulling off her belt. “I don’t know. But I’ll never forgive myself if we don’t try. Now who’s got the first aid kit?”

“I do!” Mabel said, pulling her backpack off of her shoulder. “What do you need?”

“First off, disinfect the axe. Cutting off the bite won’t help if the virus is still on the axe,” Candy started tying her belt off around Pacifica’s bicep. “Grenda, I need you to find me some clean rags and a lighter.”

“On it!” Grenda said, dashing away to search the loading bay’s office.

“Mabel, do you have anything Paz can bite on?” Mabel thought for a moment, then pulled out some Slim Jims. “Those will work, as long she bites on all of them. We’ll be as quick as possible. One more thing, Mabel, I need you secure the doors. The last thing we need is more zombies right now.”

“On it!” Mabel said, dashing off to lock every door she could find. Most were already locked, it seemed like the employees had tried to lock themselves up in here, but someone must have already been bitten because none of the doors were broken down.

Grenda came back with a pile of white rags and a road flare. “I couldn’t find a lighter, would this work?”

“That’s even better,” Candy said, leaving Mabel to wonder why Candy had wanted it. “Mabel, are we set on those doors?”

“Yeah, nothing’s gonna get through here quickly, but I don’t know how long they’ll hold if something starts ramming them,” Mabel said.

“Alright, that’ll have to be good enough. Both of you, over here,” Candy said. “Mabel, give her the slim jims, and I need you to get this ready,” she held out a kitchen knife, which Mabel hadn’t even known she’d taken, but the bedazzling job left no questions as to where it came from, “I’m gonna need it to cauterize the wound. Just hold the flare up to it so that the blade gets hot, okay? Grenda, I’m gonna need you to hold her down. This is gonna hurt like a bitch, Paz, but you can’t move your arm, okay?”

Pacifica nodded, and Grenda moved into position while Mabel lit the flare and pressed it up against the knife. “Candy, where’d you learn how to do this?”

“Alright, here we go!” Candy said, then brought the axe down on Pacifica’s arm, taking off everything below her elbow. Pacifica screamed, but Grenda kept her in place. “Knife!”

Mabel passed over the knife, and Candy pressed it down over the stump of Pacifica’s arm. The blade wasn’t quite big enough to cover it, but it was close and Mabel hoped that would be enough. She grabbed onto Pacifica’s hand, and tried to focus on the pain of her hand being squeezed so hard, instead of the muffled screams and the smell of burning flesh.

“Almost done,” Candy soothed, reapplying the blade to the other edge of the stump.  Then she pulled it away, instead wrapping cotton pads and rags around it. “And it’s done, we’re done. Let me just secure this with an ace bandage, and then we’ll get you some water, okay?”

Pacifica spit out the slim jims and nodded, and Mabel shifted so that her head was in her lap, letting one hand run through Pacifica’s hair while the other was still caught tight in Pacifica’s grasp. “Seriously, Candy, where did you learn this?”

“Right, so, you know how Netflix has those Marvel shows?” Candy said, not looking at any of them.

“I’m gonna punch you later,” Pacifica croaked, her voice hoarse, but she had a smile on her face.

“How do we know if it worked?” Grenda asked.

“We watch her,” Candy said, “The news said that victims would turn within twenty-four hours of the bite if they survived it. So we’re gonna stay here, make sure that anything that may have heard us wanders off, and we’re gonna watch for flu like symptoms. If none show up in that time, then it worked.”

“And if they do?” Pacifica asked, watching Candy carefully. Mabel squeezed her hand, calling her attention back.

“They won’t.”

 

####  ELLENSBURG, WASHINGTON

Bill had just finished the food when the radio erupted in static. “Ha! Suck it Bill!”

Bill glared at him. “Oh, whatever, you got it to play dead air. So what?”

“That’s more than you ever managed,” Dipper said, giving him a smug grin as he fiddled with the knobs. “Now, if we can just find a station…”

Dipper fell silent, occasionally muttering to himself as he fiddled with the machine. Bill rolled his eyes, instead putting his attention on serving up the beans. Who even  _ wanted _ to know how to fix a radio? The technology was practically obsolete anyway. Did Radio Shack even exist anymore? No. Because radios are fucking lame.

The static gave way to voices as Bill took a seat, and he passed Dipper a bowl before glaring at the radio as the station started to come in clearly. If this was the best the radio world had to offer then it was  _ not _ worth the electrical burns.

“I say this whole thing is a blessing in disguise,” a man was saying. “Just think about the places that have been hit: California, Oregon, Maryland, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, and now it’s spreading to Canada. These are the most liberal places in North America, as well as dens of sin, and I think this whole thing is God’s punishment. The end of times is marked by the dead rising to walk among us once more.”

“I hear you Reverend,” said another man, “But what about those good, Christian folks that this is hurting? South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama have all been infected, and all government attempts to stop the virus have only made things worse.”

“It’s all a part of God’s plan, George,” said the reverend, “First he must cleanse the world of sin. The liberals, the gays, the-” his voice cut out as Dipper moved the knobs again.

“Nope, done with that shit,” he said, “Rather listen to static than some homophobic assholes.”

“So then you  _ don’t  _ think that the zombie apocalypse was caused by the legalization of gay marriage? I’m shocked. I truly thought that those things were related.” Dipper glared at him, and Bill tried his best to look innocently surprised. Dipper’s glare increased, and he knew he failed. “Kidding, kidding. My money’s still on some government experiment gone wrong.”

“You’re a dirty conspiracist, Bill,” Dipper said, “Besides,  _ why  _ would the government want to create zombies? What possible benefit could that have? It’s probably bio terrorism.”

“I said experiment gone  _ wrong _ , Pine Tree,” Bill said, “Zombies were an unintended consequence, not the end goal.”

“Oh yeah? And what end goal would have an unintended consequence of  _ zombies _ ?”

“I dunno. Super soldier program? Did Captain America ever have to fight zombies?” Bill asked. 

“Not a clue, I never branched out from Spider-Man comics,” Dipper said. “But I still think that making accidental zombies is ridiculous.”

“Maybe we’re dealing with some Umbrella Corp knock off then,” Bill said. Dipper paused, giving Bill a questioning look. Bill grinned. “Wait, did I just make a reference you didn’t get?”

Dipper rolled his eyes, “I don’t know why I’d be expected to know about some umbrella company.”

“Umbrella  _ Corp _ is the company that made all the monsters in the Resident Evil games,” Bill said. “Aka the greatest horror games ever created. Chris Redfield was my first celebrity crush you know.”

“I don’t like horror games and I don’t know who that is,” Dipper said, though Bill noticed the slight flush on his cheeks before he turned back to the radio and hid his face from view.

Another voice filtered through the radio, so Bill let the subject drop in favor of listening.

“ A place where there are no zombies, where you need not be afraid. We welcome all who come to us with open arms, and we pledge to protect all those who decide to join us in our paradise. Join us, in Gravity Falls, Oregon, and never be afraid again. We’re located off of I-5, take Exit 43 and then follow the signs to our little piece of paradise.”

Dipper’s eyes went wide with shock, and Bill could already tell that Dipper wanted to go. Bill made a gesture for silence before Dipper could say anything though, he wanted to know everything that this broadcast was saying before he made any decisions on it.

“There are rules that you must follow, as part of our safety is reestablishing order and structure in these trying times. We cannot recreate the world we knew before, but we can create a new world, a better world. A world where humanity doesn’t live in fear of each other, but instead bands together to face a new enemy. So come to us here, and help to build a new world. One with a brighter future, for both you and lil’ ol’ me. This message will now repeat. Attention survivors, there is hope. I have created a safe haven from the monsters that now plague our fair country. A place where there are no zombies-” Bill turned the volume down, and Dipper started talking immediately.

“Mabel could be there! We have to go check it out, Bill, it’s a safe haven!”

“It  _ was _ a safe haven,” Bill interrupted, “when this message was recorded. There’s no telling when that was though. It could have fallen for all we know, and this broadcast is just endlessly airing with no one to turn it off.”

“ _ Or _ it could be totally safe and my sister could have found it,” Dipper said. “We won’t know unless we go.”

“It’s in Oregon,” Bill said, “Going there would mean backtracking, and we don’t even know if your sister went North or South or East or West. She could be anywhere.”

“We could call her and ask!” Dipper said. “I know Mabel’s number by heart, and KGW said any place with power would have cell service.”

“Great idea, except that we don’t have a phone,” Bill said.

Dipper paused. “Does this house not have a landline?”

Bill shrugged, “If they do, they hid it really well. But I’m betting that they don’t, because cell phones are way more convenient and just generally better.”

Dipper sighed. “Alright, so we can’t call, but I  _ know _ Mabel. She’s impulsive, and she worries, and I really think she’d try to find me. And I know that  _ I’m _ going to keep looking until I find  _ her _ , and I know that the last place she was for certain at was South. So I’m going South, and I’m going to stop at this survivor camp along the way. With or without you.”

“And what if it’s completely overrun and you die because you can’t defend yourself? What about your sister then? If she cares about you as much as you care about her, she’ll want you to stay safe.”

“I’ll be careful. If it looks abandoned, I won’t stop. But I can’t just ignore this place. What if it  _ is _ safe? Wouldn’t it be nice to stop running?”

“But for how long?” Bill asked. “How long do you think they’ll be able to secure an ever growing settlement? They’re advertising, that means they’re drawing in new people. How long before they run out of food, or space? Or when they get enough people to attract a horde that they can’t keep at bay? Think about the Tacoma Dome, that place was protected by the most powerful military in the world. It lasted for two days. Places like that are ticking time bombs.”

“And you think Canada will be any better?” Dipper glared at him. “People are flocking there too, and two territories have already been infected. How long do you think it’ll be before they’re just as overrun as the U.S. is?”

“The cold will stop them once we get far enough North-”

“It’s summertime Bill,” Dipper said, “That’d have to be pretty far North, and we don’t have the gear or the experience for navigating that kind of terrain. Besides, you don’t  _ know _ that the cold will stop the infected, you’re guessing at it.”

“If their bodies freeze they won’t be able to move, and unless they know how to bundle up and build a fire, they’ll freeze,” Bill said, “I’m not guessing at anything. It’s just not possible for them to operate in freezing temperatures. At least not for long, anyway.”

“Neither could we! We don’t even have winter gear, or food. I know  _ I _ can’t build a fire without coal, can you? Can you tell the difference between snow and ice? Because if we ever fell into a frozen pond, we’d be dead by sundown.”

Bill frowned. He was pretty good at wilderness survival, but only in temperate climates. “How do you know so much about navigating Northern Canada?”

“Jack London. He wrote a short story about a guy who did it all wrong and froze to death. It was unpleasant, but it taught me that I’d definitely  _ die _ if I ever tried it.”

Bill sighed. “Alright, so maybe I didn’t think Canada through super well, but I still think we should go. We don’t have to go wandering in the woods all on our own, okay? We can just find a nice little out of the way town that won’t be accessible once winter hits and then stay in a cabin.”

“And what if that town gets infected and we get trapped there? What makes you think whatever town we land in will have a spare cabin that they’d let us use for free? Hell, who's to say we could even  _ find _ a town like that once winter hits?” Dipper said. “You don’t even really have a plan past going to Canada, do you?”

Bill sighed. He really didn’t, did he? “Alright. Say we go to Gravity Falls,” Dipper perked up and Bill glared at him before clarifying, “ _ Hypothetically _ , say we go to Gravity Falls, and it’s overrun. Do you promise that you won’t try to go in anyway to see if your sister died there?”

“I promise,” Dipper said, “I won’t ever stop looking for her, but you were right earlier when you said she’d want me to be safe about it. I’m not gonna do anything stupid.”

“Alright,” Bill said, “And what if the people there are crazy cultists or something? Do you promise not to try and drag us in then?”

“What? Bill, why would they be cultists?”

“The same reason anyone becomes a cultist,” Bill said, “Some charismatic psycho convinced them that it was the end of the world and that the only way to survive would be to follow them. And with the whole living dead thing that’s going on right now, I’d be willing to bet that even more people than usual would buy into that sort of rhetoric. Besides, that announcement was talking about following vague rules and making the world a “new and better place”, how does that not scream possible cult to you?”

Dipper gave an exasperated sigh, “Fine! I promise not to drag you into a cult, okay?”

“Good,” Bill said, turning back to his beans.

“Does that mean you’ll go to Gravity Falls with me?” Dipper asked, and the hope in his voice was like a punch to the gut. Bill wanted to say no. He wanted to go to Canada and let winter protect them from the world. He made the mistake of looking up at Dipper, and it him like a ton of bricks how gone for this kid he actually was.  _ Fucking hell. _

“Fine! We’ll go to Gravity Falls,” Bill said, “But if you get me killed I’m going to come back and haunt your ass into an early grave.”

Bill tried to hold a grouchy expression, but the smile Dipper gave him put a fuzzy feeling in his chest. He was in so much trouble.

 

####  NORTHWEST COMPANY SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FACILITY

_ Stan stood frozen as the erratic beeping of the heart monitor turned to a flatline, and everyone turned to Ford for instructions. Then the prisoners were free and attacking the lab techs, and everything was a mess of blood and choked off screams. He tried to reach for Carla, but it was too late, her throat had already been torn out. He held her body as she drowned in her own blood, sobbing as the light faded from her eyes. _

_ “Stan…” _

_ “Please don’t go, Carla.” _

_ “Stan…” _

_ There was another burst of yelling as the prisoners turned on government agents, though Stan paid it no mind. Someone was tugging on his shoulder, probably Ford, but he couldn’t just leave Carla behind.  _

_ Her eyes opened again, dull and lifeless even as she reached out for him.  _

“Stan!”

Stan woke with a start, panicking for a moment as someone shook him awake. His panic passed as he recognized Carla, alive and uninjured, but it returned as soon as he registered her distress. 

“Stan, wake up!”

“Carla? What’s going on?” 

“You were having a nightmare,” she said, frowning. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Stan said, slowly sitting up. “I’m alright. Just...well, remembering, I guess.”

Carla nodded, but her concern didn’t fade. “I figured it would be something like that, but are you sure you’re alright? There’s nothing more dangerous in a situation like this than your own mind. Pain festers, and guilt can drive men mad.”

“Wise words, but I think the zombies may beg to differ,” Stan said, giving her a wiry smile.Carla’s frown deepened.

“I’m serious Stan. It’s important to talk about these things, otherwise-” she was cut off by the door slamming open, and Melody burst into the room in a panic. She glanced around the room before grabbing a sheet of metal of a table.

“We found the dodo,” she said, glancing back at them, then she was out the door once more. Stan looked to Carla, and then they were both up and on their way out the door and into the hallway. Stan took in the scene before him with horror, trying to piece together what was going on.

Ford was firing his homemade gun at the zombified dodo, but it moved so quickly that he couldn’t get a good shot to its head. Fiddleford and Melody each had large sheets of metal and were attempting to coral the undead bird towards the elevator. 

“How did it get in?” Stan asked, looking for an uncovered vent that may have served as an entry point. Could a dodo even fit in a vent?

“It was in the elevator!” Fiddleford said, jolting as the bird rammed into his makeshift shield. “That’s why it wasn’t showing up on any cameras!”

“How the fuck did it-“

“This is not the time!” Melody said, bracing herself as the bird came at her instead. “Find a way to kill it!”

“I’ve got a way to kill it!” Ford shouted, taking aim as the bird turned and raced towards him. 

“Ford don’t!”

 

**Song for this chapter: Dead Bite by Hollywood Undead**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my last cliffhanger didn't get the response that I'd been looking for, so this time I figured I'd put Wendy AND Ford on the chopping block! Aren't I considerate?
> 
> But for real, I know the ending to this sucks, so I'm gonna try really hard to stop drowning in Lukanette feels and actually write chapter 12. Some one (cough cough Flint) may have to drag me out of the tumblr tag though, because I very nearly forgot to post this chapter today thanks to Lukanette. Sorry not sorry?


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive!!!! And so is this fic, hooray! Ready to find out who in our cast may not be? Of course you are!
> 
> Sorry this took so long guys, and if you're interested in finding out why, I have further explanation in the end notes, but I promise, no matter how much shit is going sideways for me, I do intend to finish this fic, and after coming so far, there's no way in hell I'll be backing out now. After all, we're already over halfway done!
> 
> Enjoy!

####  GRAVITY FALLS, OREGON

Wendy did her best to keep her breathing even, but the throbbing pain in her leg made it difficult. She’d managed to pull herself to her feet, but she was leaning heavily on the plywood wall next to her. She needed to get moving, but if she made a wrong turn she’d be dead for sure. 

She breathed in through her nose, and tried to focus on the noises around her. If she was going to have any chance of getting out of here then she had to find her hatchet. She could hear the sounds of the guard's corpse being devoured off to her right, which meant the maze’s beginning was off that way as well. Unfortunately, she was fairly certain that her hatchet would be that way too. 

Wendy took a deep breath, then pushed herself off the wall and took a step forward. She felt a spike of pain flare in her ankle, but she knew she had to push through it. She’d definitely sprained it during the fall, but she didn’t think it was broken. Hopefully. She put a hand to her mouth and took another step forward. She couldn’t scream, or she’d be dead. 

The dead had quieted down a bit now that everyone was gone, and it didn’t sound like they were actively looking for her either. Did they even know she was here? She took another careful step forward, and froze when her foot hit something. She pulled it back, and squinted to see through the darkness.  _ Please don’t be a zombie. Please don’t be a zombie. _

Wendy crouched low, and realized she’d nearly stepped on a corpse. It was old, and almost completely stripped of flesh, as if it’d been dunked in a piranha tank instead of a maze of the undead. Her leg throbbed again, and she shifted to take her weight off of it. She looked down at the corpse,eying a mostly severed leg bone. This was going to be gross, but she needed to be able to move quickly, and it  _ could  _ help…

Wendy carefully grabbed hold of the bone, quietly pulling it apart from the last few ligaments that held the body together. She moved slowly, keeping her ears open for approaching footsteps, but she heard nothing as she pulled the bone free. She scanned the darkness, looking for scraps of fabric from the previous maze runner’s outfit, almost sighing in relief when she found some. She could have torn some from her flannel, but she worried that the noise would draw the dead.

Fabric and bone secured, Wendy quickly fashioned a makeshift splint for her leg. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do in the dark, but she’d done it once before with a stick after her brother Marcus fell into a ravine on a hiking trip, so she had at least  _ some _ idea about what she was doing.

Splint completed, Wendy carefully stood up again. Her leg still hurt, but it was a little more bearable now. She started moving again, slowly making her way through the maze, keeping her steps small but careful to make sure she didn’t step on anything. Any noise she made was dangerous, and the snap of a bone would surely be fatal.

_ Snap. _

Wendy froze, but the sound had come from a little ahead and to the right, and was accompanied by the sounds of a feeding frenzy. She kept moving, but then froze as she realized that there was a gap in the wood, and that the only thing standing between her and being devoured was a thin black curtain. She carefully moved away from the opening, looking for any alternate routes to get a better barrier between them. The path continued straight ahead in the darkness, and she couldn’t see any other offshoots until it split at the wall of the warehouse.

_ No way around it then. _

She took a breath, then covered her mouth to mute any further breathing as she limped past the curtain. She kept to the other side of the path, moving slowly so as not to make a sound. She could see the slightest shadows moving in the gap between curtain and floor, and every noise had her tensing further.

Crossing the gap was slow going, but she made it eventually. She didn’t relax until the sounds of the frenzy had grown faint, though she was still careful to only breathe through her nose. She stopped when she reached the end of the path, then sunk low to the ground while she peaked out around the corner. The light was better here, the windows above were aided by gaps in the boards that covered the windows on the first floor, but there were shadows cast by the catwalk that crisscrossed the path along the edge of the warehouse. But her eyes had adjusted to the dark, and the light fell in such a way that she could see the glint of metal about fifteen feet to her right. It  _ had _ to be her hatchet. It was so close, but she still had one major problem.

_ Clink _ .

She’d forgotten about them thanks to the mess on the catwalk, but now she could make out the shadows of the zombies that had been chained to the walls, spaced about five feet apart, lining the edge of the maze like mile markers on a highway. There wasn’t enough slack for them to get to her as long as she kept to the far edge of the path, but there was no way they’d miss her walking by. And the moment they noticed her, they’d alert every zombie in the maze to her presence.

Wendy strained to hear the sounds of the frenzy, only to realize it was over. The zombies that had gathered there would be moving on, and while she hoped they wouldn’t walk through the curtain, there was always the chance of one wandering through. She needed to get moving, and hope that the maze would keep the dead from getting to her before she could get to her hatchet.

With a final glance behind her, Wendy rounded the corner in a crouch. If she was extraordinarily lucky, she would be able to slip by right under the zombies’ undead noses.

“Graaagh!!!!”

Wendy was not extraordinarily lucky.

Chains pulled taunt with a series of echoing clanks, and the warehouse was filled with snarling again. Wendy jumped into action, running the rest of the way to her hatchet. The slam of a body into the plywood wall next to her nearly made her jump back into the waiting arms of one of the zombies chained to the wall, but she corrected the movement just in time.

Her ankle was burning with pain, but she didn’t stop until her hand wrapped around her hatchet. It was a relief to have it with her again, but she wasn’t safe yet. She swung the hatchet at the chained zombie closest to her, taking its head clean off, then she drove her hatchet into the wooden boards covering the window. 

The plywood behind her shuddered as more and more of the dead pushed against it, and she started to worry that it wouldn’t hold. She was hacking away at the boards as quickly as she could, but she was realizing that she wouldn’t be fast enough. On her next strike the glass of the window shattered, but her momentary victory was dashed by the guttural scream of a zombie coming around the corner. Wendy turned to meet its charge, the weight of her hatchet a familiar comfort in the face of a fast approaching death.

Her blade sank into the monster’s head, cleaving it in two, but there were more to come. Wendy wouldn’t let herself go down without a fight though. She was going to make it out of here or die trying, and then she was going to find Gideon and tear him to pieces.

Snarls echoed across the room as Wendy was charged again, and she threw herself into the fight with everything she had. She was  _ not _ going to die today. Not until she made Gideon  _ pay. _

 

####  NORTHWEST SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FACILITY, OREGON

“Ford don’t!”

Fiddleford watched in horror as the undead bird raced towards Ford, who was quick to shout over his brother in order to keep it on course.

“Over here you feathery bastard!”

The bird leapt at Ford, digging its beak and claws into his free arm and chest as he raised the gun to its head. There was a muffled pop as the bolt was buried in its head, and then the bird dropped to the floor with a sharp thump, echoed by Ford falling to his knees in front of it.

“Ford!” Carla took two steps toward him, only to be stopped by Stan’s hand on her arm. Fiddleford was frozen in shock, unable to tear his eyes from the blood that was slowly spreading across the starch white tile floor of the hall.

“Fuck, that hurt,” Ford said, a humorless smile spreading across his face. He slid the bolt gun across the floor, and it skidded to a stop at Fiddleford’s feet. He felt numb. “I don’t think I’m gonna last too long.”

“No!” Carla shouted, trying to step forwards again, her voice thick with emotion. “You’re going to be fine. You have to be, we need you. The  _ world _ needs you.”

“I think I’ve done more than enough to the world. Carla, I-” Ford broke off into a coughing fit, and Fiddleford mentally ticked it off on the list of bite symptoms.  _ Coughing, fever, dizzy spells, nausea, excessive sweating, running nose, exceptional paleness. _ The words scrolled through his mind in a constant loop as Ford recovered and continued on. “Carla, I have faith in you. You can find the cure without me.”

“But what if I can’t?”

“You will.” Ford’s tone left no room for argument, even as he fell into another coughing fit. “Fids.”

The nickname snapped Fiddleford out of his trance, and he brought his eyes up to meet Ford’s gaze.

“Fids, I...I’m sorry to ask this of you, but…” Ford trailed off, words failing him as he lowered his gaze to the bolt gun at Fiddleford’s feet. “Please, I don’t-” Ford broke off into coughing again, but it was worse this time, forcing him to lean over as his body shook violently.

“Ford!” Stan called out, desperate, “Ford, stay with us!”

Ford collapsed completely, and Fiddleford slowly picked up the bolt gun. Ford may not have finished his request, but Fiddleford knew what he’d been trying to say. Ford’s coughing subsided, but he made no move to sit up. Carefully Fiddleford inspected the bolt gun, it had two shots left, which meant that he better not miss.

“Ford?” Carla’s voice was quiet, barely above a whisper, but in the silence it seemed too loud. “Ford, can you hear me?”

For a moment there was no response, but then Ford began pushing himself off the ground, his hands smearing the blood around him as he struggled for purchase. Carla breathed a sigh of relief that quickly turned into a stifled scream as Ford’s head snapped up. There was blood smeared across his face, and his mouth was twisted into a snarl as he snapped at them. His eyes locked onto Carla, cold and devoid of life, and he lunged for her.

Melody was the only one ready for it, pushing him back with the metal sheet. Ford slipped and lost his balance when he was pushed back across the blood, but he wouldn’t be down long.

“Fiddleford! Take him out, now!” Melody said, gearing up to push him back again. Fiddleford snapped to attention, raising the gun and doing his best to steady his hand. He had a clear shot; all he had to do was pull the trigger.

“Wait, you can’t do that!” Stan said.

“The hell we can’t! He’s turned Stan, there’s nothing for it but a shot to the head!” Melody answered. “Fids, take the shot!”

“No, wait!” Stan’s voice rang out just as the gun fired, and Fiddleford registered the panic too late. “Get down!”

The bolt struck Ford’s forehead directly, but instead of ending the fight it ricocheted with a loud clang, heading back towards Fiddleford. He barely had time to duck behind his metal sheet before it went through his eye.

“What the hell just happened?” Melody shouted, ducking behind her own makeshift shield as Ford charged her again.

“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Stan said, coming up behind her to help push Ford back again. Fiddleford moved next to her, trying to line the edges of the metal up to make a barrier. “Ford’s got a metal plate in his head from a car wreck when we younger. That bolt gun isn’t gonna work unless you can line the shot up with his eye.”

“Shit,” Melody said, bracing against another attempt to push through the shield. “We need a plan.”

“I’m open to suggestions,” Fiddleford said, trying to hold firm against Ford’s continued attacks. “But they need to come fast, because we’re not gonna be able to hold him off forever.”

“Carla, get back in the lab, and get ready to shut the door. Fids, we’re gonna start backing up, try to angle yourself when we get close to the door.”

“Got it,” Fiddleford said, slowly moving backwards.

“Carla, you ready?” Melody asked. There was no response. “Carla!”

“I’ll get her, and the door, can you hold him without me?” Stan asked. Melody nodded, and then Stan was gone. Fiddleford started moving them back a bit faster. 

“Ready when you are,” Stan said, thankfully not too far off now. “Fids, start turning. Align the sheets at a right angle.”

After that they moved quickly, pulling the sheets together around the door. Ford kept snarling, and Fiddleford was finding it increasingly difficult to hold up the sheet metal and keep his fingers clear. 

“Get ready,” Melody said, “On three, we push the sheets forward, let go, and get inside before Stan closes the door. Okay?”

“Okay,” Fiddleford answered.

“One.”

_ Slam. _

“Two.”

_ Slam. _

“Three!”

They pushed the sheets off with a crash, then tripped over themselves getting back into the lab. Fiddleford and Melody fell into a heap on the floor, and Stan slammed the door shut the moment they were clear.

“We need to barricade the door, now!” Melody said, pulling herself up and taking Fiddleford with her. “Help me with this filing cabinet!”

Together they moved the cabinet across the carpet floor, and Fiddleford tried to ignore the sound of growling as what used to be his friend tried to force its way through the door.

Stan moved out of the way as they pushed the cabinet flush against the door, effectively securing it. The banging didn’t stop, but the cabinet held firm. For the first time since he’d heard Ford yell, Fiddleford felt like he could breathe again. For the moment, they were safe.

“Now what?” Stan asked, looking to Melody. So far she’d had a plan, but Fiddleford could tell by the sudden uncertainty on her face that she hadn’t planned anything further.

“Search the room for anything that could be used as a weapon. We’ll wait for Fo-” Fiddleford broke off, then cleared his throat and began again. “We’ll wait for it to lose interest, then we’ll go out and surprise it.”

“Alright,” Melody said, and Stan nodded his assent. The three of them split up to canvas the room. Fiddleford quickly looked for Carla, she was standing in front of the monitors, watching Ford try to force his way through the door with a distant sort of look on her face, like she wasn’t really seeing it. Fiddleford couldn’t blame her for being overwhelmed, Ford had pretty much left saving the world up to her. He certainly didn’t envy her that task.

Fiddleford refocused on searching the room. They’d looked through this room a hundred times over though, finding decent weapons now seemed like it might be something of a stretch. 

He hoped the rest of the world was having better luck than they were.

 

####  GRAVITY FALLS, OREGON

Gravity Falls was probably the coolest place Thompson had ever been to. For one thing, everyone was incredibly nice, which left him feeling nostalgic for his own hometown. He hoped they were all doing okay. He’d have ask Tambry if he could borrow her phone to try and call them now that the phones were online again, if she ever woke up that was. Not that he really begrudged her for wanting to nap, it had been awhile since they were able to really let their guards down.

More than kindness though, Gravity Falls gave them safety. It really hadn’t been that long since the quarantine began in Portland, but it felt like a lifetime had gone by since their lives had been normal. Being able to walk around without constantly checking over his shoulder was something Thompson had missed more than he realized, and after helping Wendy unload the car he’d decided to explore the town on his own. He was still too wired to sleep anyway, and pacing around an apartment reminded him too much of how they’d started this mess. 

Thompson had spent the whole afternoon outside, just enjoying the fresh air and the sounds of people. When the sun started getting low he returned to the apartment to get the others up for dinner. He was a little surprised that Wendy hadn’t come back, but he supposed she didn’t have to come back until curfew, and she’d mentioned that she wanted to walk the perimeter when they parted ways.

Thompson banged on the bedroom doors, “If you guys want dinner you better get your butts out of bed!”

Nate stumbled out first, followed by an indistinct grumbling from Robbie and Tambry’s room.

“What time is it?” Nate asked, rubbing his eyes. 

“Quarter past seven,” Thompson said, “Kinda late for dinner, but I wasn’t really watching the time, so I didn’t even think about it until I realized how low the sun was. We’ve maybe got an hour of light left, and curfew is at nightfall.”

“Is that enough time to get dinner at that diner?” Nate asked, “Because that place sounded pretty good.”

“It will be if the lovebirds get up,” Thompson said, “Ow!”

He hadn’t heard them, but Tambry and Robbie had filtered into the room, though Tambry was apparently still tired, since her response to his mostly innocuous comment was to punch him in the arm. For someone so small she was surprisingly strong.

“Does the diner have coffee?” Robbie asked, stifling a yawn.

“Probably,” Nate shrugged.

“I’m sold, let’s go,” Robbie said, before making his way out the door, Tambry close on his heels. Thompson rolled his eyes before following them out, and Nate brought up the rear. He supposed the others really must have been tired, since they didn’t notice their missing party member until they’d gotten outside.

“Where’s Wendy?” Tambry asked. She was fixing her hair, trying to seem nonchalant, but her frown gave her away.

“She wanted to take a look at the defenses, I think she’s having a hard time adjusting to being safe again,” Thompson said, “I’m sure she’ll make her way back before curfew.”

“Her loss then,” Nate said, urging them along the sidewalk. “Now hurry up, I’m starving.”

“Your concern for our friend is touching, Nate,” Tambry rolled her eyes. “What if she’s gotten lost?”

There was a pause, where they all considered the possibility. Then Tambry’s poker face broke and they all burst out laughing.

“The day Wendy gets lost in the woods is the day the world will  _ really _ end,” Robbie said, “Now come on, daylight’s a wasting.”

“Wait, you don’t consider zombies to be the end of the world?” Nate seemed skeptical.

“Eh, they’ve lost their thunder.”

“ _ Lost their thunder? _ They’re zombies! The living dead! They eat human flesh!”

“They’re B-movie villains at best, Nate.”

“Your face is a B-movie villain!”

Thompson followed his friends on to the diner, smiling at their childish banter. It’d been too long since they’d let down their guards enough to act like college students, and it was nice to see them smiling again.

He looked to the sinking sun and frowned, he hoped Wendy really did make it back before sunset. He wasn’t worried about her getting into trouble out there, but he  _ was _ concerned about breaking the rules on their first day. It would kind of suck to get kicked out of such an awesome place on their first day.

 

####  ELLENSBURG, WASHINGTON

“We’re clear,” Bill said, leaning so far out the window that Dipper was worried he’d fall. “Looks like the dead got into the house those dumbasses tried to hide in, the horde’s moved on now.”

“Should we head out then?” Dipper asked, tugging Bill back inside before he really did fall out.

“No, the sun’s going down soon. It’d be safer to wait until morning.” Bill shut the window, then headed back downstairs, leaving Dipper to follow. “We should take another look at the shed though, try and find supplies to hotwire a car.”

“Wait, what? We can’t do that!” Dipper protested. “If we hotwire a car it’ll always need to be hotwired.”

Bill groaned. “Pine Tree, come on! We’ve been doing all kinds of illegal stuff, why are you protesting minor property damage?”

“I’m not protesting because it’s illegal, though maybe I should be since grand theft auto is a  _ capital crime _ ,” Bill stuck his tongue out, and Dipper rolled his eyes before continuing. “I’m protesting because if we have trouble with it later on we could die. Hotwiring cars takes time, and if we ever need to make a quick getaway we’ll be in trouble.”

Bill gave him a thoughtful look, like he was trying to puzzle something out. Dipper shifted, uncomfortable under the sudden scrutiny. “What?”

Bill shrugged. “Nothing, that’s just a very good point, and you don’t usually make good points.” Bill laughed as Dipper sputtered indignantly. 

“I make good points all the time!” Dipper protested, but Bill just shook his head before making his way to the backdoor, stopping briefly to grab the crossbow and the machete, the latter of which he handed to Dipper.

“Sure you do, Pine Tree,” he said, “Now help me raid the tool shed before we run out of daylight. And remember to keep quiet, there may be stragglers and I really don’t feel like having to fight them off.”

Dipper glared, but remained silent as they made their way outside, keeping a careful eye out for any signs of the undead on the other side of the fence. They slipped into the shed unseen, and Bill went to work sorting through the different tools, checking their weight and testing how sharp they were. Hedge clippers, a shovel, and a sledge hammer were set into one pile, while a weed whacker, a pick ax, and a metal rake made up another. 

Dipper didn’t really understand what Bill’s criteria for sorting out weapons was, and he was a little afraid to touch anything for fear of knocking something over in the mess, so he focused on keeping watch instead.

Every now and again he could see a zombie shambling past through the crack of the open door, but they never got close. Bill had added a pitchfork to his first pile, only to switch it into the second one a moment later. A hunting knife had also been added to the first pile, as well as a bright red, plastic gasoline can.

After that Bill started fiddling with the garden hose, though Dipper couldn’t imagine why he was bothering. The whole thing was tangled mess, and there was no way Bill was gonna be able to straighten it out inside such a cramped space.

Dipper looked back outside, a small group of zombies was shambling by, taking their time as they ambled down the road. Dipper tried to stay calm, they’d be fine as long as-

_ Crash! _

The zombies whirled towards the noise, and while Dipper knew logically that they couldn’t see them, he still felt like they were looking right at him.

“Fuck!” Bill was louder than Dipper thought he should be. Dipper turned to see that in Bill’s attempt to untangle the hose, he’d somehow knocked over a shitload of tools, effectively burying his carefully made piles.

“Bill!” Dipper hissed, “We’ve got incoming.”

Bill looked up just as they could hear the sound of bodies hitting the chain link fence. “Shit.”

Bill started trying to untangle his weapons, but it was only making more noise. “Bill stop! We need to be quiet.”

“Does it matter at this point?” Bill hissed back, but he still paused in his digging.

“They can’t see us, so maybe,” Dipper said, “They go kinda dormant without stimulation, right? Maybe they’ll forget about the crash if we’re really quiet?”

“And if they don’t?” Bill asked. Dipper passed him the machete he’d been too afraid to set down.

“I’ll see if I can get anything else free, but you can hold onto that for now, okay?” 

Bill nodded, and Dipper crouched low to sort through the tools again. After helping Mabel organize her craft room, no mess could intimidate him.

The goaning continued, but so far the fence was doing its job. Dipper just hoped none of them fell over the side. Their “keep quiet and be forgotten about” plan probably wouldn’t work if the dead got close to the shed. Mostly because Dipper would start freaking out about it.

Dipper had managed to free the rake, the gas can, and the sledgehammer before Bill snapped. “This isn’t working! We need to distract them somehow, before they attract more.”

“Any brilliant ideas?” Dipper asked. Bill looked thoughtful, then started looking at the sides of the shed, testing the wooden boards for any kind of give. 

“Yeah, actually,” Bill said, grinning as he found two that could be pushed apart a bit on the far side. “Can you get the crossbow?”

“Give me a few minutes, and yeah,” Dipper said, quickly locating the bow and figuring out what he’d need to move in order to free it. It was kind of like playing Jenga, but with higher stakes and sharp objects.

Dipper managed to contain his joy when he finally freed the crossbow, but only barely. Bill grinned, quickly lining up a shot with a target that Dipper couldn’t see. Bill pulled the trigger, and a few seconds later Dipper heard glass shattering in one of the neighboring houses. The dead heard it too, because they very quickly ambled off to investigate the new noise.

“Dumbasses,” Bill said, still grinning. “Try and get the hunting knife and the hedge clippers, I feel like those would be most useful. Also, I was hoping to get an arm’s length of hose, if you can manage that.”

“ _ Why? _ ” Dipper asked, though he’d already set to work on finding the first two items.

“For syphoning gas,” Bill shrugged. “I don’t know how long this apocalypse thing is gonna be going for, and we’ve got a can now, so all we needed was a hose.”

Dipper found the hunting knife and the clippers, then set to work on cutting off a piece of the hose, wondering all the while why Bill knew how to syphon gas. That wasn’t a normal skill to have, was it? Though now that he thought about it, Bill also apparently knew how to hotwire a car. Maybe he was a mechanic? 

“Anything else you want?” Dipper asked, freeing the length of hose from the pile. 

“Nah, guess not. Let’s get out of here before we break more shit,” Bill said, grabbing the sledgehammer, the hose, and the gas can in one hand, and raising his crossbow with the other. Dipper grabbed the machete, hedge clippers, the knife, and the rake, then followed Bill out of the shed and back to the house.

Dipper slumped in relief when they’d finally made it back. They’d been inside so long he’d sort of forgotten how stressful it was to be outside. “Anything else we need to do tonight?”

“Eh, not really,” Bill said, “Maybe pack whatever food we feel like carrying. Try to figure out which car goes to which house so we can get some car keys.”

Dipper thought about that for a second, then grinned as an idea came to him. “What about the car those guys who brought the horde were driving? The keys are probably still in the house, plus whatever supplies and weapons they had.”

Bill grinned back at him. “Brilliant idea, Pine Tree. We’ll head over first thing in the morning.”

“And then we’ll go check out Gravity Falls?” Dipper knew that Bill had already agreed to it, but he needed to make sure one final time that Bill really would be coming with him.

“Well, we should go back to the wreck and grab the rest of our shit first, but after that I suppose we can go check out the probable cult,” Bill said, rolling his eyes.

“Stop calling it a cult, you have no evidence of that,” Dipper said, trying to sound more exasperated than he felt.

“How much do you wanna bet that they murder people there?” Bill said instead, grinning now. “Or maybe they stage wrestling matches against the dead!”

“That’s insane, why would anyone do that?” Dipper sighed as Bill shrugged. “You’re just saying weird shit now.”

“Probably,” Bill grinned at him, and Dipper couldn’t help but smile back. 

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Probably.” 

 

####  GRAVITY FALLS, OREGON

It was sunset when Wendy finally pulled herself through the window. She was bloody and exhausted, and her leg hurt so bad she fell again once she was out, but she hadn’t gotten bit. In the end it was the maze itself that had saved her, most of the dead didn’t have the brains to figure out how to actually get to her, instead opting to try and force their way through the plywood walls.

She dragged herself off the ground and started limping away from the warehouse, the chorus of groans fading as she got further away. She wondered how long it would be before the remaining zombies managed to get out, or if they’d even be able to do so at all before Gideon and his men came back.

She made it into the woods and dropped to the ground behind a bush. She needed to rest, and more importantly she needed a plan. Gideon was going to have to answer for this if it was the last thing she ever did.

Wendy inspected her hastily made splint in the fading light, it had held tight throughout the fight, but it looked pretty fucking gruesome. She kinda wanted to fix it, but then she heard voices on the other side of the clearing. She froze, sinking further into the shadow of the bush as the voices approached the warehouse.

She could hear laughter, and as she peeked through the leaves she could see that the first of the convicts had arrived back at the warehouse. She couldn’t tell what they were saying at first, but then they got close enough to see the window Wendy had busted open, and they went quiet.

“Shit.” Well, mostly quiet.

“Hey boss! You’re gonna want to see this!” One of them called, and a few moments later Gideon entered the clearing, followed by Killbone and Determined.

“What’s the matter now?” Gideon snapped, but then he saw the window too and pulled up short. “Fuck!”

“What do we do now boss?” Determined asked, turning in on himself when Gideon turned towards him. Wendy wondered how the hell he’d gotten mixed up with them, he seemed out of place among the other men. He also didn’t look like the kind of person who’d be able to stomach  _ watching  _ people be torn apart by the undead, let alone orchestrate and make bets on it.

“Determined, go keep an eye on the clinic. No way she got out unharmed, not after that fall, and she’s probably been bitten, she’s gonna need a doctor,” Gideon shouted, “Killbone, go get Ghost-Eyes, I don’t care how long the quack wanted him to rest, we’re gonna need his tracking skills. Mad Max, fix this damn window. The rest of you, search the grounds! I want her found and dead before the sun rises!”

“Yes sir!” came from the men around him, and then the men split off in different directions. Determined and Gideon went in the direction of the town, and the group Wendy didn’t know went back the way they’d come, but she didn’t care too much about them. Killbone entered the forest about twenty feet to the right of her, and she kept quiet as she followed him.

Wendy wasn’t sure what side of things that doctor was on, but going by Gideon’s clear disdain for him, he probably wasn’t another prison buddy, which meant that there was a chance he might help her.

The sun was sinking quickly now, but the darkness helped conceal her as she followed Killbone further into the woods. By the time they reached the fence, the sun was completely gone, and Wendy could only track Killbone by his flashlight beam. They followed the fence for a while longer, and Wendy could hear the dead in the distance. She’d heard they were more active at night, but she hadn’t really paid attention to it before.

Eventually the trees started to clear, and they came to a dirt road the followed along the fence, which very abruptly changed from silver chain link and plywood, to painted chain link alone. Not long after they came to a gate, marked by a sign that proclaimed the rules of the dog park, though they couldn’t be read as someone had spray painted “Do not enter the dog park” overtop of them.

Killbone opened the first gate and stepped into a sort of pen, then shut it behind him. Wendy krept as close as she could to watch him fiddle with the second gate, which was secured by a bike chain. Lucky for her he was shining the flashlight directly on the tumblers, so she could clearly see him spin them into position, 618, before he walked through the second gate and into the field.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Wendy followed him through the gates. Spinning the tumblers into place was a little tricky, but her eyes had adjusted pretty well to the dark, and now that they were away from the trees she had the starlight to help guide her, so she managed.

Once she was through the gate she got started on catching up as quickly as possible without making any noise. It was easier said than done, and in the end she only managed because he had to stop again when they reached the far side of the fence.

She kept her distance as he fiddled with a section of the fence that had been cut open, and was instead held together with clamps. He undid them one by one until he could slip through, then put them all back before continuing on. His jerky flashlight work had caused a few close calls, but she managed to remain unseen while he worked.

Getting through the fence herself was slightly quicker, as she was much smaller than Killbone was, but it still slowed her down enough that she would have lost him if not for the zombie that found him first.

He made quick work of it, but the sound was enough to let her find him once more. They were no longer safe from the undead, so Wendy made sure to have her hatchet at the ready, just in case. The forest returned full force, and the night was silent except for the sounds of the dead, and still they walked on.

Wendy was just starting to worry that this was a waste of time when she saw the lights of a cabin in the distance. Killbone walked up to the porch and started banging on the door, and Wendy crouched in the shadows at the edge of the house. The door opened, spilling warm yellow light into the woods, and a perfectly ordinary man stood in the doorway.

“Killbone? I didn’t expect to see anyone until morning-”

“Shut it, Strange,” Killbone said, “Where’s Ghost-Eyes? Gideon wants him.”

“He’s resting,” Strange said, “I told you before, he has a concussion, he needs to rest.”

“Get him up,” Killbone said, “We’ve got orders.”

“But-”

“ _ Now _ , Strange!”

The ordinary man frowned, but then he nodded and stepped back into the cabin. It took a few moments, but then he returned, with Ghost-Eyes right behind him. “Do be careful.”

“Fuck off.” Ghost-Eyes growled, and Strange sighed before shutting the door. “So what’s the boss want me for?”

“That bitch from earlier got out,” Killbone said, walking back the way he’d come. “Boss wants her dead by morning.”

Ghost-Eyes grinned, “Good. I really wanted to watch her die.”

Wendy tried not to be too put off by that, instead remaining hidden in the shadows of the house until she couldn’t hear or see the convicts any longer. Then she counted to thirty, just to be sure, before rising and moving towards the door. Then she knocked, just loud enough to be heard. Strange opened the door quickly, but he seemed a little shocked when he saw who was at his door.

“Hi,” She said, suddenly unsure of this plan. “Are you Dr. Strange?”

He nodded, a little numb, but said nothing.

“Er, well, I was hoping you could help me,” Wendy said, “I kinda hurt my leg earlier…”

Strange looked down and noticed her horrifying excuse for a splint, but it seemed to snap him out of his daze. “Oh dear! Yes, come in, come in! What on earth happened?”

Strange ushered her into the cabin, before making her sit down. He didn’t give her a chance to answer him though, already moving on to his examination. “Oh, I see now, it’s a splint! That’s very clever, if a bit terrifying. For a moment I’d thought this was  _ your _ bone.”

Strange pulled apart her splint, then removed her boot and rolled her jeans up so he could take a look, muttering to himself all the while. “Oh dear, how long have you been walking on this? It’s just a sprain, but it’ll be quite swollen now. Give me just a moment to clean this up and get you a proper splint, and keep that leg elevated please!”

Strange moved on into the next room, leaving Wendy a little shocked herself. She’d sort of expected him to take more cajoling before he’d help her, but he hadn’t even asked for her name. She wasn’t sure if she should be impressed with his commitment to his job or concerned for his future safety.

Just then Strange returned, splint kit in one hand and washcloth in the other. “Give me just a moment to clean up the blood, then we’ll get your leg sorted.”

“Thank you for doing this,” Wendy said, doing her best to hold still while he working.

“No need to thank me,” Strange beamed, “It’s been so long since I had a patient who actually respects me, this is a real treat!”

Wendy frowned at his logic. “Why don’t your patients respect you?”

“They’ve been told not to, I imagine,” Strange said, shrugging. “I uh, well, my boss doesn’t care for me much, but I doubt I’d make it long without him checking in on me. I’d have gone into town, but he’s worried I’d tell people the truth about him.”

“What truth about him?” Wendy asked, trying to sound casual and unsuspicious. She’d only intended to get a proper splint, but if this guy could give her some actual information about Gideon she certainly wouldn’t say no.

“Ah, there I go and my big mouth,” Strange said, “I suppose he’s right to exile me here.”

“No,” Wendy said, “No one should be put in danger to protect a secret.”

“Ah, well, it’s a pretty big secret,” Strange said, “See...well, he’s been lying to an awful lot of people, and those lies keep him in power. If they knew the truth…”

Strange fell silent for a moment, and Wendy did her best to be patient, but it was starting to seem like he didn’t plan on elaborating. “But what  _ is  _ the truth?”

Strange sighed, then smiled at her. “Well, so long as you promise not to tell?” Wendy nodded rapidly, and Strange’s smile grew. “Well I’m not sure how it happened, exactly, but my boss, Gideon, and his father, Bud, came back to town with a woman who’d been bitten. Poor thing, she was suffering so much, fighting so hard, and I did everything I could to save her, of course, but there’s really nothing one can do for a person who’s been bitten.

“Eventually she would have turned on her own, but Gideon just couldn’t wait for her to die. He already suspected that the bite would turn her, and he wanted to kill her before it could happen. His father, however, was a bit skeptical. He didn’t think zombies were possible, and he refused to let her be killed. They started fighting, and Bud started shouting about how prison had made Gideon into a little monster, which came as a shock to me, I hadn’t even realized the boy had  _ been _ to prison! His mother tried to stop them, poor woman, but Gideon was furious. So he stabbed that poor bitten woman in the chest, and then when she rose as a zombie he had her bite Bud.”

“Oh my god,” Wendy was shocked, too shocked to remember not to interrupt.

“Oh, that’s not the worst of it dear,” Strange said, a sad look coming across his face as he worked on securing the splint. “Once Bud was bitten, Gideon killed the zombie woman. Then he told his father he could test the theory of whether or not a bite would turn someone himself, and locked poor Bud in the basement. I think he may still be down there, actually. And his poor mother, she was in such a state of shock, she hasn’t said a word to anyone since. I’m not really a doctor of the mind, but I don’t think she’ll ever recover from watching all that.”

“That’s horrible,” Wendy said, disgust and anger filling her. She’d known that Gideon was a terrible human being, but that he’d kill his own father? That was monstrous.

“Yes, it really is,” Strange said, “So you see why he keeps me away from the other townsfolk?”

“It’s not right, but yes, I understand now,” Wendy said, still lost in her thoughts. Gideon needed to be brought down. The whole of Gravity Falls would likely come down with him, but Wendy had the suspicion that it would come down anyway, once resources started getting scarcer and Gideon needed to cut back on citizens in order to keep the place running. Or when someone else found out about how fucked up he really was, or who really protected the place.

So Wendy hatched a plan. A horrible plan, that would bring the whole place down in the biggest way possible, because she wouldn’t be able to do anymore sneaking around with a whole manhunt coming after her.

Strange finished his work, and Wendy thanked hi again before she left his quaint little cabin. She walked back to the fence in darkness, anger brewing as she walked, her plan coming together more clearly in her mind.

When she reached the hole in the fence, she undid every single clamp, then opened the fence up as wide as it would go. When she got to the inner gate of the dog park, she undid the bike chain, then changed the combination before chaining the door open. She opened the last gate wide, and propped it open with a rock. Then she took her hatchet and banged the flat of the blade against a metal pole. It rebounded with a metallic clang, and then she hit it again, and again, until the clang was answered by the howl of a dead man.

Then she started walking back towards the warehouse. She had one more distraction to cause, and then she’d be set to track down the body of Gideon’s father. That was the only way she was going to be able to prove any of this, and she was going to expose Gideon for what he was if it killed her.

 

**Song for this chapter: Seven Devils by Florence + The Machine**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun dun!!!!! Here's hoping I can get the next chapter written by the end of August, and if you're about to say "but newdog, the last time you updated this fic was in March, how can you possibly expect to be better this time around?"
> 
> Well I'll tell you! So, first of all, April was the hellish precursor to finals week (first week of May), and as an English major, that mostly meant writing essays. My brain was fried, I wrote more for a school assignment than I even thought possible, and while those essays were nothing in comparison to this monster of a fic (the longest being a 3000 word essay about Shakespeare), this is somehow leagues easier. Once I was on summer break though all I really wanted to do was nap, and I was kind of being lazy for most of May. Sorry not sorry. But then June came, and I got slammed with the reality of my parents getting a divorce. At that point my goal became constant distraction, and I accidentally killed my ability to focus on pretty much anything. BUUUUT I am back on track now (mostly), and I don't spontaneously burst into tears every time I think about the divorce anymore, so I'm hoping that I'll be able to get back on track with writing now.
> 
> I'd also like to send a shout out to my wonderful beta, Flint, for sticking with me through my accidental hiatus! Thanks for being a pal!

**Author's Note:**

> Can't wait till the end of the month for more? The make sure to check out our blog http://zombageddon.tumblr.com/ for updates, bonus content, art, and more!


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